Silicon Integrated Systems Corp. (SiS), a leading supplier of core logic chipsets, today announced the launch of its newest northbridge for the Intel Pentium® 4 CPU, the SiS649. The SiS649 is SiS’ latest chipset designed for the latest DDR and DDR2 memory standards and PCIe x16, making it an ideal choice for vendors who need a high performance next-generation platform that also offers compelling value.

The SiS649 was specifically designed for the latest applications that require high bandwidth. Utilizing SiS’ HyperStreaming™ technology, the SiS649 offers more advanced data processing and maintains the best resource utilization across multiple operating environments. In addition, the SiS649 features SiS MuTIOL® 1G technology, for the smoothest data transfer between South and North Bridges.

Memory-intensive digital multimedia applications will also benefit from the support for advanced DDR2 offered with the SiS649 chipset. 2 DIMMS are supported, with a huge 1 GB per DIMM of RAM, for a total of 2GB of system memory supported. The SiS649 employs an extremely flexible memory architecture, where vendors can choose either to employ DDR or DDR2 in the design of the motherboard, giving them added flexibility for changing market conditions.

Combined with SiS’ latest South Bridge Chipset SiS965, the SiS649 offers vendors a formidable combination that is ready for the next generation of peripheral devices thanks to PCIe support. The SiS965 supports PCIe x1, gigabit LAN, 8 USB 2.0 ports, AC 97 7.1 channel sound, 4 SATA (supporting hot plug functionality) and 4 ATA. The SiS965 also supports Multiple RAID disk array modes in RAID 0/1.

"A single channel DDR and DDR2 solution gives vendors a much needed mainstream option," said Daniel Chen, President and CEO of SiS. "With the SiS649, SiS is proud to once again give vendors a world-first technology with support for single-channel DDR2."