Accelerated Hub Architecture (AHA)

Intel Hub Architecture (IHA) is Intel's architecture for the 8xx family of chipsets, starting circa 1999 with the Intel 810. It uses a memory controller hub (MCH) that is connected to an I/O Controller Hub (ICH) via a 266 MB/s bus. The MCH chip supports memory and AGP, while the ICH chip provides 
connectivity for PCI, USB, sound, IDE hard disks and LAN.
Intel claims that, because of the high-speed channel between the sections, the IHA is much faster than the earlier northbridge/southbridge design, which hooked all low-speed ports to the PCI bus. The IHA also optimizes data transfer based on data type.