AMD North / South Bridge PCH Chipset

The southbridge is one of two chips in the core logic chipset on older personal computer (PC) motherboards; The other one is the north bridge. As of 2023 , most personal computing devices no longer use a set of two chips and instead have a single chip acting as a "chipset"; such as Intel s Z790 chipset.

The southbridge typically implements the slower capabilities of the motherboard in the chipset computer architecture compared to other chipsets. While on systems with Intel chipsets, the south bridge is called I/O Controller Hub (ICH), AMD has called the south bridge Fusion Controller Hub (FCH) since the introduction of the Fusion Accelerated Processing Unit (APU), thus moving the North bridge functions to the CPU chip. made it similar in function to the Platform hub controller.

The southbridge can be distinguished from the northbridge in that it is generally not directly connected to the CPU. On the contrary, the north bridge connects the south bridge to the CPU. By using controller integrated channel circuitry, the northbridge can connect signals from I/O units directly to the CPU for data control and access.

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With the 690 series chipsets, AMD has switched to PCH technology that completely includes the south bridge. In this way, while the graphics processor unit is included in the main processor, PCH is completely included in the processor in new generation processors with its developing technology, while external PCH continues to be used in desktop and gaming laptops due to performance requirements. H series processors that use external PCH offer more performance because the PCH operates as a separate unit.