Republic of the Philippines

TRINIDAD MUNICIPAL COLLEGE

Poblacion, Trinidad, Bohol

COLLEGE OF COMPUTER STUDIES

Subject Code : IT 101

Descriptive Title : Computer Concepts and Fundamentals
Credit Units : 3.0
Pre-requisite : None

MIDTERM TOPIC: Computer Motherboard & Computer Memory Units

What Is A Motherboard?

The motherboard is essentially a large PCB (printed circuit board), and the various lines you see are embedded
copper tracks. These copper tracks are responsible for linking up your various parts and allow communication to take
place between them.

What Is A Motherboard Made Of?

A motherboard is mainly composed of two materials:

 Layers of fiberglass for insulation

 Copper to form conductive pathways

If you’re wondering why motherboards are made in layers, the answer is quite simple: to save space.

Stacking 4-8 layers of copper-embedded fiberglass PCB makes motherboards significantly smaller. This also

increases the speed of processing data since electrons have less distance to travel.

Now, unless you know exactly what you are doing, you should never drill into your motherboard! A motherboard is

composed of layers that have copper embedded in between fiberglass. If you were to drill through one of the copper
lanes, it would be the end of your motherboard. It may seem strange that this is even being mentioned, but there

have been instances where people have drilled to accommodate a new aftermarket cooler.

Of course, this doesn't mean the PCB is never drilled; the PCB is pre-drilled before it even arrives at the factory. The

drilling is for mounting holes and through holes for attaching and soldering components. Vertical interconnect access

(VIAS) will also be soldered onto the motherboard and is basically electrical connections between the copper layers.

Motherboard Manufacturing Process

The motherboard manufacturing process is essentially broken down into four parts:

 Surface Mount Technology (SMT)

 DIP (Dual Inline Package)
 Testing
 Packaging

1. Surface Mount Technology (SMT)

This is where smaller components are soldered onto the motherboard.

The process starts with the PCBs stacked and pushed by a machine one by one to an advanced printer, which then

follows a pre-labeled layout before soldering components in place.

The motherboards aren’t sent straight to DIP because they need to be manually inspected first and then placed on an

integrated chip tester to ensure that the print that was ordered is accurate. If it passes the test, then its journey

continues.

2. DIP (Dual Inline Package)

This process starts with the motherboards being placed into a machine that installs the small capacitors. After that,

larger components, such as 24-pin connectors, and input/output ports, are mounted by hand.

Before a motherboard is ready for testing, it has to pass the manual inspection to ensure that the components are

correctly installed.
After the manual inspection, these are sent through a heat chamber that is said to go all the way up to 509°

Fahrenheit (265° Celsius) to reinforce the recently inserted components. After this, it will then be ready for testing.

3.Testing

Testing is really easy to understand and, as always, important for quality control. All of the I/O ports, PCI Express

Lanes, etc. will need to pass a series of tests before they are tagged as ready for packaging.

4. Packaging And Distribution

The packaging and distribution process is where the SATA cables, manual, I/O shield, driver installer, and just about

everything you’d find inside a newly purchased motherboard is packed.

The motherboard will also be packaged in an antistatic bag here. At this point, the motherboard is finally ready for

distribution.

Parts Of A Motherboard
1. BIOS And CMOS

BIOS or Basic Input Output System is where all the information and settings for the motherboard are stored. It can be

accessed, updated, and modified via the BIOS mode.

The CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semi-Conductor) battery is what’s responsible for keeping all the

information intact when the entire system is shut down.

The CMOS battery can be removed to reset the BIOS after a failed update or if you overclock your RAM beyond its

capabilities.

2. Input/Output Ports

Also commonly referred to as I/O ports for short. These ports are located at the back of the computer and are often

color-coded.

Below are the I/O ports along with the colors they represent.

 Microphone- Pink 3.5mm jack port

 Speakers and Headphones / Headsets / Earbuds- Bold green 3.5mm jack port
 Monitor- Older motherboards are equipped with a solid blue VGA port at the back, but newer motherboards
use the HDMI and black or white DVI port as standard
 Ethernet network cable- Colorless port
 Keyboard and Mouse- PS/2 port (Keyboard- purple; Mouse- green)
 USB devices- USB 2.0 colorless port; USB 3.0/3.1 solid blue port (Yes, VGA ports are a similar color, but
this only goes to show how outdated VGA is)
 Some modern motherboards feature USB C type connections

3. IDE And SATA Connector (Storage Device Connectors)

The internal storage device connectors are where you will connect your storage devices, such as mechanical hard

drives and solid-state drives. These storage devices need to be connected to the motherboard for data to be

submitted and retrieved.

Don’t forget: while HDDs and SSDs do the same thing (store data), there is a big difference between how HDDs and

SSDs accomplish this.

IDE, or Integrated Drive Electronics, is used to hook up disk drives, floppy disks, and HDDs. This is a 40-pin male

connector that connects the HDD.

As technology advanced, IDE connectors became obsolete. Now the SATA connector (Serial Advanced Technology

Attachment) is the standard connector with a 7-pin interface. Despite having 33 fewer pins, this is faster than the IDE

connectors.
4. Power Connectors

The ATX (Advanced Technology eXtended) connector (found in more recent motherboards) has 20 or 24-pin female

connectors. This is the largest connector on the motherboard, as this draws out the needed power directly from the

power supply.

The SMPS (switched-mode power supply) then utilizes this power to keep the motherboard running.

5. Front I/O Connectors

This is where you connect the Power Switch, LED power indicator, Reset Switch, and the HDD LED cables. The front

audio port and front USB are also connected here. These connections are usually located at the bottom part of the

motherboard.

6. CPU Socket

The CPU socket is where your CPU (processor) is installed. This is where the processing and transfer of data

happens. Your CPU is one of the most important parts of your computer, so you often choose your motherboard

based on compatibility with the CPU you intend to use. The CPU needs to be 100% compatible with the motherboard

socket for it to work.

7. Expansion Card Slots

The expansion card slots are where you add extra components such as a video card, network card, audio card, or

PCIe SSD. The slots are located in the bottom half of the motherboard below the CPU socket.

Video Card Slot

The video card slot lets you install a dedicated GPU and boost the graphical performance of your computer further

than an AMD APU or Intel CPU would. This goes to the high data slots, like the PCIe slot or AGP slot. Ports include,

but are not limited to, (depends on the card):

 HDMI
 DVI
 DisplayPort
 USB-C

Network Card Slot

The network card slot is where you put the Network Interface Card (NIC). This allows you to connect to other

computer networks via LAN or the internet. It has an RJ-45 port at the back.
Modem Card Slot

This is where you connect your network card so you can connect to the internet through the telephone line.

Obviously, this is an older technology than the above NIC. This typically has 2 RJ-11 connectors to connect to the

telephone.

Audio Card Slot

This is where audio cards fit. They convert electrical signals to the audio signals or sound that we can hear.

Depending on the type of audio, there will be different types of ports found at the back. But it usually has several

3.5mm ports used for the following:

 Microphone
 Speaker
 Recorder
 Gaming Joystick

8. RAM (Memory) Slots

RAM, or Random Access Memory, slots are one of the most important parts on a motherboard.

The RAM slots are, unsurprisingly, where you place the RAM modules. There is the SIMM slot (Single in-line memory

module) that only supports a 32-bit bus, and there is the DIMM slot (Dual inline memory module) that can

simultaneously run with a 64-bit bus.

DDR3 (Double Data Rate 3rd Generation) was once the standard with RAM, but this has slowly been replaced

with DDR4 (Double Data Rate 4th Generation). While DDR3 is still surprisingly effective, DDR4 is the new standard.

When it comes to gaming, there’s still an active debate whether you need 8GB or 16GB of DDR4.

This is where you connect your M.2 SSD. The M.2 slot is regarded as the replacement for mSATA standard and was

formerly known as Next Generation Form Factor (NGFF).

When M.2 devices use the PCI bus instead of the SATA bus, they can transfer data six times faster than a standard

SSD.
M.2 SSDs were designed to enable high-performance storage in compact devices, such as laptops and tablets. M.2

devices are widely accepted as being the best types of storage, as we see them becoming a standard feature in

desktop PCs too.

We have covered the different sections of a motherboard you are likely to interact with during your PC build. Of

course, there is much more at work on a motherboard that plays a major role in the operation of your various

components.

Other parts, such as chipsets, act as a communications hub or a traffic control center, and they manage the flow of

data between the processor, memory, and peripherals. It’s essentially the backbone of a PC.

Since this is an article to help educate PC builders/gamers, new or experienced, let’s take a look at these parts and

their functions:

Other Parts Of A Motherboard And

Their Functions
Since the introduction of the Intel 5 series, Intel calls the southbridge
the Platform Controller Hub, or PCH, while AMD still calls it the southbridge.

ROM Chip
ROM or Read Only Memory is where critical information needed to start a
computer is stored. It’s very hard (if not impossible) to modify the contents of
ROM.

Unlike RAM, where information is lost when power is turned off, ROM retains
the contents even when the computer is turned off. This is why RAM is
considered "volatile," while ROM is "non-volatile."
VRMs (Voltage Regulator Module)
VRM also called a processor power module (PPM), is a component that acts
very similar to a computer power supply unit (PSU). It cuts down the voltage,
a process that actually happens several times before the electricity even
reaches your home, to provide the CPU with the exact amount of voltage it
needs.

The VRM is made up of MOSFETs and chokes.

The different units in storage memory

Unit Equivalent

1 kilobyte (KB) 1,024 bytes

1 megabyte (MB) 1,048,576 bytes

1 gigabyte (GB) 1,073,741,824 bytes

1 terabyte (TB) 1,099,511,627,776 bytes

1 petabyte (PB) 1,125,899,906,842,624 bytes

Northbridge and Southbridge Chip
9. M.2 Slot

The northbridge chip is connected directly to the CPU and handles fast communication between the CPU and

performance-sensitive components such as the graphics card and system memory.

It is also connected to the southbridge chip that acts as a communications hub too. However, the southbridge

communicates with less performance-sensitive components such as USB ports, storage devices, onboard networks,

and audio chips.

Nowadays, modern CPUs have the northbridge inside of them, which is why you can’t find a northbridge on modern

motherboards. This is a faster, more responsive system and has reduced latency when compared to the older, on-

board northbridge.

The southbridge chip, however, is on the physical motherboard but is usually covered with a heatsink that’s engraved

with the logo of the motherboard’s brand.

Computer - Memory Units

Memory unit is the amount of data that can be stored in the storage unit. This storage
capacity is expressed in terms of Bytes.
The following table explains the main memory storage units −

S.No. Unit & Description

Bit (Binary Digit)

1
A binary digit is logical 0 and 1 representing a passive or an active state of a component in an
electric circuit.

Nibble
2
A group of 4 bits is called nibble.

Byte
3 A group of 8 bits is called byte. A byte is the smallest unit, which can represent a data item or
a character.

Word
A computer word, like a byte, is a group of fixed number of bits processed as a unit, which
varies from computer to computer but is fixed for each computer.
4
The length of a computer word is called word-size or word length. It may be as small as 8 bits
or may be as long as 96 bits. A computer stores the information in the form of computer
words.
The following table lists some higher storage units −

S.No. Unit & Description

1 Kilobyte (KB)
1 KB = 1024 Bytes

Megabyte (MB)
2
1 MB = 1024 KB

GigaByte (GB)
3
1 GB = 1024 MB

TeraByte (TB)
4
1 TB = 1024 GB

PetaByte (PB)
5
1 PB = 1024 TB

Units of Memory The memory unit is the principal storage of the computer. All the data and instructions
that the computer needs at a moment are stored here. All storage devices are characterized with the
following features: 1. Speed 2. Volatility 3. Access method 4. Portability 5. Cost and capacity

Basic Units of Measurement The components of the computer can recognize only two states that is
presence or absence of an electrical signal. Two symbols used to represent these two states are 0 and 1,
and are known as BITS (an abbreviation for BInary DigiTS). 0 represents the absence of a signal, 1
represents the presence of a signal. A BIT is, therefore, the smallest unit of data in a computer and can
either store a 0 or 1. Since a single bit can store only one of the two values, there can possibly be only
four unique combinations: 00 01 10 11 Bits are, therefore, combined together into larger units in order
to hold greater range of values. BYTES are typically a sequence of eight bits put together to create a
single computer alphabetical or numerical character. More often referred to in larger multiples, bytes
may appear as Kilobytes (1,024 bytes), Megabytes (1,048,576 bytes), GigaBytes (1,073,741,824),
TeraBytes (approx. 1,099,511,000,000 bytes), or PetaBytes (approx. 1,125,899,900,000,000 bytes). Bytes
are used to quantify the amount of data digitally stored (on disks, tapes) or transmitted (over the
internet), and are also used to measure the memory and document size.