Intel 317443-001US Mechanical Form Factor, Thermal Management, System Features and Operation

Theory of Operation—Intel®945GME Express Chipset

3.2Mechanical Form Factor

The evaluation board conforms to the ATX form factor. For extra protection in a development environment, you may want to install the evaluation board in an ATX chassis. Internal and rear panel system I/O connectors are described in Section 3.4.3. An overview of connector and slot locations is provided in Section 4.0.

3.3Thermal Management

The objective of thermal management is to ensure that the temperature of each component is maintained within specified functional limits. The functional temperature limit is the range within which the electrical circuits can be expected to meet their specified performance requirements. Operation outside the functional limit can degrade system performance and cause reliability problems.

The development kit is shipped with a fansink thermal solution for installation on the processor. This thermal solution has been tested in an open-air environment at room temperature and is sufficient for evaluation purposes. The designer must ensure that adequate thermal management is provided for any customer-derived designs.

3.4System Features and Operation

The following sections provide a detailed view of system features and operation. Refer to Figure 2 and Table 7 for the location of the major components of the platform.

The Intel® 945GME Express Chipset features the 82945GM Graphics Memory Controller Hub and the Intel® I/O Controller Hub (ICH7-M).

3.4.1Intel(R) 945GME GMCH

The Intel® 945GME Express Chipset GMCH provides the processor interface optimized for Intel® CoreTM 2 Duo processors, system memory interface, DMI and internal graphics. It provides flexibility and scalability in graphics and memory subsystem performance. The following list describes the reference board’s implementation of the Intel® 945GME Express Chipset GMCH features.

A list of features follows:

•1466 Micro-FCBGA package

•533/667 MHz Front Side Bus

•36-bit host bus addressing

•System memory controller (DDR2 implemented)

—Supports Dual Channel and Single Channel operation

—Two 200-pin SODIMM slots

—DDR2 400/533/667

•Direct Media Interface (DMI)

•Integrated graphics based on Intel’s Graphics Media Accelerator 950

—Directly supports on-board VGA, S-Video and LVDS interfaces.

—Supports resolutions up to 2048 x 1536 @ 75 Hz.

•SDVO interface via PCI Express* x16 connector provides maximum display flexibility

—Can drive up to two display outputs

	Intel® CoreTM 2 Duo processor with the Mobile Intel® 945GME Express Chipset
May 2007	Manual
Order Number: 317443-001US	23