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Just a random nerd question. I see people estimate the transistor count of larger chips like processors based on lithography type and functional unit type, etc. What about say, a small chip like like Z370? its 22nm and 23x23mm. How many transistors would this require? I assume there's no cacvhe/ALUs, but it must have bus buffers, rings, some memory for storing incoming data, clockgens, PLLs, control logic for PCIE and USB control, etc

Chipsets are typically manufactured on a non-bleeding-edge process, so transistor count will be lower than you might think from die size alone.

23 x 23 mm is the package size; the silicon is much smaller, like, ten times smaller by surface area.

https://wccftech.com/intel-z370-motherboard-roundup-asus-msi-asrock-aorus-gigabyte/ - Intel's presentation of Z370

https://www.bit-tech.net/reviews/tech/intel-core-i7-7700k-i5-7600k-review/2/ - actual photo of Z270

The Z370 (Coffee Lake) chipset is manufactured on a 22nm process, compared to a 14nm process for the Coffee Lake CPUs. A 22nm base transistor takes about 29% more area.

The Z370 die is approx 6.5mmx10mm, or 65mm^2. You can fit approximately 450 million transistors in that area using a 22nm process.

--SS

Also Intel included a generous gift with each PCH, a Quark x86 processor running Minix aka Intel Management Engine.

Thanks for the replies. Yeah it seems these fellas can be quite beefy despite their small size. And, yes I'm familiar with the IME, it's actually a collection of x86 processors, at least as of the Z170 or so. I spent a few days trying to follow the PTSecurity "Can this be turned off and if so, how" stuff that came out a while back.