computer science

Silicon Integrated Systems

Silicon Integrated Systems is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Silicon Integrated Systems rather than just read about it. In short: Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS; Chinese: 矽統科技; pinyin: Xìtǒng Kējì) is a company that designs and manufactures integrated circuits, chipsets and components related to Human-Machine Interfaces (HMI). The company was founded in 1987 in Hsinchu Science Park, Taiwan.

Key takeaways

Silicon Integrated Systems belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Silicon Integrated Systems to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Silicon Integrated Systems from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS; Chinese: 矽統科技; pinyin: Xìtǒng Kējì) is a company that designs and manufactures integrated circuits, chipsets and components related to Human-Machine Interfaces (HMI). The company was founded in 1987 in Hsinchu Science Park, Taiwan.

Business In the late 1990s, SiS made the decision to invest in their own chip fabrication facilities. At the end of 1999, SiS acquired Rise Technology and its mP6 x86 core technology. Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS) acquired Hycon Technology on January 1, 2025. The acquisition involved SiS issuing 0.8713 shares for every Hycon share, totaling 27,755,080 shares.

Mainboard chipsets

One of the most famous chipsets produced by SiS was the late 486-age chipset 496/497 which supported PCI bus among older ISA- and VLB-buses. Mainboards using this chipset and equipped with CPUs such as the Intel 80486DX4, AMD 5x86 or Cyrix Cx5x86 processors had performance and compatibility comparable with early Intel Pentium systems in addition to a lower price.

After this late success, SiS continued positioning itself as a budget chipset producer. The company emphasized high integration to minimize the cost to implement their solutions. As such, SiS one-chip mainboard chipsets that included integrated video, such as the Socket 7-based SiS 5596, SiS 5598, and SiS 530 along with the Slot 1-based SiS 620. These were some of the first PC chipsets with such high integration. They allowed entire system solutions to be built with just a mainboard, system RAM, and a CPU.

386 & 486 (Socket 1, 2, 3) SiS 310,320,330 "Rabbit" SiS 401/402 ISA SiS 406/411 EISA, Vesa Local Bus SiS 460 ISA, Vesa Local Bus SiS 461 ISA, Vesa Local Bus SiS 471 ISA, Vesa Local Bus SiS 496/497 ISA, VLB, PCI

Pentium (Socket 4,5,7)

SiS 501/502/503 ISA, PCI SiS 5511/5512/5513 ISA, PCI SiS 5571 ISA, PCI SiS 5581 ISA, PCI SiS 5582 ISA, PCI SiS 5591/5595 ISA, PCI, AGP The SiS 530 (Sindbad) with SiS 5595 southbridge supported Socket 7, SDRAM 1.5 GB max., a bus frequency from 66 MHz to 124 MHz, and can have from 2 to 8 MiB shared memory for an integrated AGP SiS 6306 2D/3D graphics controller. Includes integrated UDMA66 IDE controller. mainboards using the SiS 530 were positioned as cheap office platforms and paired often with low-cost chips from Intel competitors, such as the AMD K6 series or Cyrix 6x86. The graphics controller had Direct3D 6.0 and OpenGL support, although it was a very low-performance product for 3D acceleration. SiS 540 (Spartan) integrates SiS 300 graphics controller.

Socket 370, Slot 1 SiS 600/SiS 5595 SiS 620/SiS 5595 SiS 630 - includes North- and South bridges (SiS 960) and 2D/3D graphics controller (SiS 305) on one chip SiS 633 SiS 635

Socket 478, Socket 775 SiS and ALi were the only two companies initially awarded licenses to produce third party chipsets for the Pentium 4. SiS developed the 648 chipset with this license (SiS 648 B Stepping supports Intel Hyper-Threading CPU on some motherboards like MSI 648 Max).

Socket A (Socket 462), Slot A

Socket 940, 754, 939, AM2 Memory support is dependent on the CPU SiS created a multimedia chipset for the Xbox 360.

Southbridge chips

Paired with later SiS chipsets, such as the 661GX/761GX, which adopt a standard two-chip chipset design (instead of single-chip, like the older SiS 630/730 series chipsets). SiS southbridges can handle IDE, LAN (accompanied by a PHY chip), audio (with an AC'97 codec), along with other types of I/O. SiS' proprietary MuTIOL interconnect connects the southbridge chip to the northbridge, which contains the RAM controller (for chipsets targeted at Intel platforms) and interfaces with the CPU.

Graphics chipsets

Discrete 3D Graphics chips

Integrated 3D Graphics

1Pixel shaders: vertex shaders: texture mapping units: render output units Some cards contain a 3D graphics accelerator but it is only functional with the SiS's Proprietary Windows-only driver (the company does not provide documentation for others to write drivers). However, the Linux kernel includes a working third party driver that, while not supporting 3D gaming, makes the cards usable under Linux.

Touch-Screen chipsets

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Silicon Integrated Systems

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Silicon Integrated Systems claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Silicon Integrated Systems before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Silicon Integrated Systems ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Silicon Integrated Systems

In research: Silicon Integrated Systems appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Silicon Integrated Systems in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Silicon Integrated Systems is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1987 establishments in Taiwan, Computer companies of Taiwan, Computer hardware companies, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Silicon Integrated Systems outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Silicon Integrated Systems” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Silicon Integrated Systems in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Silicon Integrated Systems means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Silicon Integrated Systems out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Silicon Integrated Systems in simple terms?

Why does Silicon Integrated Systems matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Silicon Integrated Systems?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Silicon Integrated Systems.