Intel Hub Architecture is Intel's architecture for the 8xx family of chipsets, starting with the Intel 810

Intel 810

The Intel i810 chipset was released by Intel in early 1999 with the code-name "Whitney" as a platform for the P6-based Socket 370 CPU series, including the Pentium III and Celeron processors. Some motherboard designs include Slot 1 for older Intel CPUs or a combination of both Socket 370 and Slot 1...

. It uses a memory controller

Memory controller

The memory controller is a digital circuit which manages the flow of data going to and from the main memory. It can be a separate chip or integrated into another chip, such as on the die of a microprocessor...

 hub (MCH) that is connected to an I/O Controller Hub

I/O Controller Hub

I/O Controller Hub , also known as Intel 82801, is an Intel southbridge on motherboards with Intel chipsets . As with any other southbridge, the ICH is used to connect and control peripheral devices.- ICH :...

 (ICH) via a 266 MB/s bus. This connection is sometimes called Direct Media Interface

Direct Media Interface

The Direct Media Interface is the link between an Intel northbridge and an Intel southbridge on a computer motherboard. It was first used between the 9xx chipsets and the ICH6, released in 2004. Previous chipsets had used the Hub Interface to perform the same function. Server chipsets use a...

 (DMI). The MCH chip supports memory and AGP

Accelerated Graphics Port

The Accelerated Graphics Port is a high-speed point-to-point channel for attaching a video card to a computer's motherboard, primarily to assist in the acceleration of 3D computer graphics. Since 2004 AGP has been progressively phased out in favor of PCI Express...

, while the ICH chip provides connectivity for PCI

Peripheral Component Interconnect

Conventional PCI is a computer bus for attaching hardware devices in a computer...

, USB

Universal Serial Bus

USB is an industry standard developed in the mid-1990s that defines the cables, connectors and protocols used in a bus for connection, communication and power supply between computers and electronic devices....

, sound, IDE hard disks and LAN

Local area network

A local area network is a computer network that interconnects computers in a limited area such as a home, school, computer laboratory, or office building...

.

Intel claims that, because of the high-speed channel between the sections, the IHA is much faster than the earlier northbridge

Northbridge (computing)

The northbridge has historically been one of the two chips in the core logic chipset on a PC motherboard, the other being the southbridge. Increasingly these functions have migrated to the CPU chip itself, beginning with memory and graphics controllers. For Intel Sandy Bridge and AMD Fusion...

/southbridge

Southbridge (computing)

The southbridge is one of the two chips in the core logic chipset on a personal computer motherboard, the other being the northbridge. The southbridge typically implements the slower capabilities of the motherboard in a northbridge/southbridge chipset computer architecture. In Intel chipset...

design, which hooked all low-speed ports to the PCI bus. The IHA also optimizes data transfer based on data type.

Next Generation

Intel Hub Interface 2.0 was employed in Intel's line of E7xxx server chipsets. This new revision allowed for dedicated data paths for transferring greater than 1.0 GB/s of data to and from the MCH, which support I/O segments with greater reliability and faster access to high-speed networks.