Intel I/O Controller Hub – Part 4

A family of Intel southbridge microchips, I/O Controller Hub (ICH) is used to manage data communications between a CPU and a motherboard. This specifically holds for Intel chipsets based on the Intel Hub Architecture. It is designed to be paired with a second support chip known as a northbridge. The ICH is used to connect and control peripheral devices.

ICH8

A complement to the 965 class MCH chips, ICH8 is offered in several different versions. The non-mobile ICH8 does not have a traditional PATA interface. The ICH8 was the first ICH model to control eSATA and Gigabit Ethernet, which were previously accommodated in the MCH. The base version only includes four SATA 2.0 ports. Variants:

82801HB (ICH8) Base
82801HR (ICH8R) RAID
82801HH (ICH8DH) Digital Home
82801HO (ICH8DO) Digital Office
82801HM (ICH8M) Mobile
82801HBM (ICH8BM) Base Mobile
82801HEM (ICH8EM) Enhanced Mobile

ICH9

The ICH9 came out in May 2007 in the P35 (Bearlake) chipset and removed all PATA support. Variants:

82801IB (ICH9) Base officially has neither AHCI or RAID support, but with a simple BIOS mod can add support for AHCI.
82801IR (ICH9R) RAID with AHCI and RAID Support
82801IH (ICH9DH) Digital Home with AHCI and no RAID Support
82801IO (ICH9DO) Digital Office with AHCI and RAID Support
82801IBM (ICH9M) Base Mobile
82801IEM (ICH9EM) Enhanced Mobile
82801IUX (ICH9M-SFF) Ultra Mobile

ICH10

Intel launched the ICH10 southbridge in June 2008 with the P45 (Eaglelake) chipset. It implements the 10Gbit/s bidirectional DMI interface to the “northbridge” device and supports various interfaces to “low-speed” peripherals along with a suite of housekeeping functions. Other benefits include reduced load on CPU and decreased power consumption. Variants: