Introduction
ROBO-638 User’s Manual
1-6
1-3 System Architecture
The following illustration of block diagram will show you how ROBO-638 gives you
a highly integrated system solution. The most up-to-date system architecture of
ROBO-638, includes two main VLSI chips , 82443BX Host Bridge and 82371EB
PIIX4E, to support Pentium-II/III processor, SDRAM with ECC, PCI bus interface,
APM, ACPI compliant power management (option), USB port, SMBus
communication, and Ultra DMA/33 IDE Master. The on-board super I/O chip ,
W83977ATF, will support PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse, two UARTs, FDC, Parallel and
Infrared interface. Besides, three on-board devices, i.e. SCSI, VGA, and LAN will
give user more flexibility and reliability of application in a harsh environment.
The CPU socket adapts advanced right angle type of Slot-1 connector to support
high availability and reliability, and easy operation in general industry application.
The North Bridge 82443BX provides a completely integrated solution for the system
controller and data path components in a Pentium-II/III processor system. Its 64-bit
GTL+ based host bus interface, optimized 64-bit DRAM interface with ECC
supports four 3.3V DIMMs at the maximum bus frequency of 100 MHz. The 32-bit
PCI bus interface supports 4 PCI masters for external backplane support.
The South Bridge, 82371EB PCI ISA IDE Xcelerator (PIIX4E), provides a highly
integrated multifunction PCI-to-ISA bridge solution for the best industry application.
It supports 2-channel dedicated Ultra DMA-33 IDE master interfaces, full Plug-and-
Play compatibility, and APIC (Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller)
interface. It also supports 2-port USB (Universal Serial Bus feature) and PCI 2.1
Compliance operation. It fully supports Operating System Directed Power
Management via the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI)
specification. In addition, it also provides XD-bus via buffer logic control to support
BIOS read/write access and external real-time clock (RTC) to maintain time and date
of a system.
The Super I/O chip W83977ATF integrates two high-speed serial ports, one parallel
port, FIR/SIR interface, FDD interface and 8042 keyboard controller with PS/2
mouse ports. This parallel port supports one PC-compatible printer port (SPP),
Enhanced Parallel Port (EPP) and Extended Capabilities Port (ECP).
A standard 16-bit ISA bus interface is applied for all slower I/O operations. In
ROBO-638, it contains watch-dog timer (WDT) enabled by jumper setting and
trigger by software, disk-on-chip (DOC) for M-system Flash disk, and ISA buffer
driving for special I/O applications and multi-ISA slots. Besides, an advanced
feature is used on ROBO-638 to support detecting and monitoring of system
temperature, operating voltage and fan status.
