Is an SoC basically a fancier motherboard?

[chocobosandwich]

A really tiny one?

 

[DivideBYZero]

Pretty much, except a SoC is the entire motherboard in a single chip:

Everything inside the main box in the diagram is on the single SoC package.

 

[chocobosandwich]

So what's the difference between a motherboard and a chip? One is green and the other is...not green?

 

[Deeko]

A motherboard is a board that holds a lot of chips and ports and whatnot. Separate entities that work together.

A SoC is a single chip that encapsulates all the features of a motherboard into one unit.

Its kinda like...comparing a component stereo system to an all-in-one HTIB.

 

[vshah]

basically the same. except if you try, using current process tech, to cram the amount of processing power of say an i7 system + gtx 580 gfx card into one chip, it would be tough to dissipate the heat etc.

but both sides are heading in that direction. ARM SOCs are getting more and more powerful, and intel/amd are integrating memory controllers, GPUs, etc. on to their processors.

 

[chocobosandwich]

So is the only difference the materials? Aren't they both silicon?

I also find it kind of hilarious that people bicker about which Chip performs better, Tegra 2, Omap, Exynos, etc. when most of them use the same ARM9 processors and are near identical. At least with motherboards they bicker about features, and graphics cards about warranty, less so about performance.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

basically the same. except if you try, using current process tech, to cram the amount of processing power of say an i7 system + gtx 580 gfx card into one chip, it would be tough to dissipate the heat etc.

Plus a top of the line chip like that would be to large to successfully mass produce on current manufacturing processes.

 

[TheStu]

Plus a top of the line chip like that would be to large to successfully mass produce on current manufacturing processes.

I remember when the Conroe chips first came out (desktop Core 2 Duo), Intel for giggles mocked up what it would look like on Pentium 1 manufacturing tech. It was larger than an ATX motherboard, would have used over 1000W of power, and would have operated at about 100MHz.

Not totally germane to the conversation, but talking about the size of a SoC desktop CPU/GPU reminded me of it.

 

[Deeko]

So is the only difference the materials? Aren't they both silicon?

I also find it kind of hilarious that people bicker about which Chip performs better, Tegra 2, Omap, Exynos, etc. when most of them use the same ARM9 processors and are near identical. At least with motherboards they bicker about features, and graphics cards about warranty, less so about performance.

No. A motherboard is essentially an open layout. Its a bunch of sockets and ports that you plug CPUs, video cards, etc. A SoC has all of that - the motherboard, the chipset, the gpu, etc - integrated into one set. Its the same fundamental components, but smaller and more integrated.

Also - different SoCs do have different components. They can have completely different GPUs, different memory architectures, different clock speeds, more. Just like every computer based on a Core 2 Duo isn't the same, every SoC based on the Cortex A8 isn't the same.

 

[Mopetar]

Ideally, yes; in reality, no. Even in devices where SoCs are used, like smart phones, there's still a lot of things that aren't included on the SoC that are necessary for the device to function.

That's a picture of the logic board for an iPhone 4. Here's a close-up of some of the other chips on that board.

There's still a lot of things that current SoCs don't include. It's likely that in the future more and more of these things will move onto the same die, but for the time being there's still the need for a motherboard.