Monday, November 18, 2002		ITerminology

Web Standards Project: Abbreviated WASP, a grassroots organisation that promotes standardisation among the manufacturers of computer and Internet products and services based on the recommendations of the W3C.

USB 2.0: Also referred to as Hi-Speed USB, USB 2.0 is an external bus that supports data rates up to 480 MBPS. USB 2.0 is an extension of USB 1.1. USB 2.0 is fully compatible with USB 1.1 and uses the same cables and connectors. Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Lucent, Microsoft, NEC and Philips jointly led the initiative to develop a higher data transfer rate than the 1.1 specifications to meet the bandwidth demands of developing technologies. The USB 2.0 specification was released in April 2000.

Northbridge/Southbridge: In Northbridge/Southbridge chipset architecture designs, the Northbridge is the chip or chips that connect a CPU to memory, the PCI bus, Level 2 cache and AGP activities. The Northbridge chips communicate with the CPU through the FSB. The Northbridge chip is one of two chips that control the functions of the chipset. The other is the Southbridge. The Northbridge can consist of more than one discrete chip while the Southbridge is typically only one discrete chip. In Northbridge/Southbridge chipset architecture designs, the Southbridge is the chip that controls all computers I/O functions, such as USB, audio, serial, the system BIOS, the ISA bus, the interrupt controller and the IDE channels. In other words, all functions of a processor except memory, PCI and AGP.