VIA VT8237A - Bringing Serial ATA and RAID to the Mainstream

Featuring the new VIA DriveStation™ Controller Suite, the VIA VT8237A South Bridge enables multiple drive connectivity options and brings native support for Serial ATA and Serial RAID to the Mainstream PC for the first time, across a complete range of VIA core logic chipset platforms supporting the full spectrum of Intel Pentium® 4, AMD Athlon™ XP, AMD Opteron™, and VIA C3®/Eden™ ESP processors.

With its integrated VIA Vinyl™ Multichannel Audio Suite, the VT8237A delivers rich, warm surround sound at resolutions as high as 32-bit/192kHz through up to six- or eight-channel outputs, while the VIA Advanced Connectivity Suite offers a host of high-bandwidth connectivity options, including support for up to eight high-speed USB 2.0 ports and high-throughput 10/100 Mb/s Fast Ethernet.

Based on VIA's unique VIA Modular Architecture Platform (V-MAP), the VT8237A features the new Ultra V-Link interconnect, which delivers data throughput speeds of up to 1066 MB/s from the South Bridge to the next generation of high performance VIA North Bridge solutions. Through its support for the 8X V-Link interface, the VT8237A is also fully compatible with existing VIA North Bridge solutions such as the KT600.

Comprising four key components, the VT8237A South Bridge has been designed to meet the increasing demands of today's software programs while providing all the necessary headroom for the data-intensive applications of tomorrow.

VIA DriveStation™ Controller Suite

Serial ATA
» Full duplex high performance 150MB/s Dual Channel Serial ATA interface
» Support for additional two Serial ATA devices through SATAlite™ interfaceinterface

V-RAID
» Serial RAID controller
» RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 0+1
» User-friendly Windows-based V-RAID software interface

Parallel ATA 133
» Supports up to four PATA devices

» Read more about the VIA DriveStation™ Advanced Controller Suite

VIA Advanced Connectivity Suite

USB 2.0 Controller
» Support for 8 USB 2.0/1.1 ports

Network Controller
» Enterprise Class 10/100Mbps Fast Ethernet MAC

PCI & LPC bus controllers

» Read more about the VIA Advanced Connectivity Controller Suite

VIA Vinyl™ Multichannel Audio Suite

VIA Vinyl HD Audio

VIA Vinyl AC'97 Audio integrated 6 surround sound

VIA Vinyle Gold Audio onboard 8 surround sound
» 24/96 resolution audio
» VIA Envy24PT + VIA Eight-TRAC Codec + additional DAC

» Read more about the VIA Vinyl™ Multichannel Audio Suite

VIA V-MAP Architecture

Ultra V-Link
» High throughput 1GB/s South Bridge/North Bridge interconnect supporting the new generation of high performance VIA North Bridge solutions

8X V-Link
» High speed 533MB/s South Bridge/North Bridge interconnect supporting current VIA North Bridge solutions across all processor platforms

VIA Hyperion 4in1 Drivers
» Optimizing system performance and stability

» Read more about the VIA V-MAP Architecture

Block Diagram

Key Features

» Supports full range of Intel® Pentium® 4 processors
» Hyper-Threading Technology support
» 800/533/400MHz FSB settings
» Supports up to 8GB Dual Channel DDR400/333/266
» Support for AGP 8X/4X
» Asynchronous bus architecture
» Ultra V-Link 1066 MB/sec high bandwidth North/South Bridge interconnect
» Support for VIA Vinyl 6-channel & Vinyl Gold 8-channel HD Audio
» Serial ATA support for up to 4 devices
» Integrated V-RAID with RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 0+1*, and JBOD (SATA) support
» Parallel ATA133/100/66 support for up to 4 devices
» Support for up to 8 USB 2.0/USB 1.1 ports, UHCI compliant
» Support for VIA Velocity Gigabit Ethernet companion controller & Integrated 10/100 Fast Ethernet
» Integrated MC'97 Modem
» Advanced power management capabilities including ACPI/OnNow
» 819-pin BGA North Bridge
» 539-pin BGA VT8237A South Bridge