FDI or Flexible Display Interface is an interconnect created by Intel

Intel Corporation

Intel Corporation is an American multinational semiconductor chip maker corporation headquartered in Santa Clara, California, United States and the world's largest semiconductor chip maker, based on revenue. It is the inventor of the x86 series of microprocessors, the processors found in most...

 in order to allow the communication of the HD Graphics integrated GPU

Graphics processing unit

A graphics processing unit or GPU is a specialized circuit designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory in such a way so as to accelerate the building of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display...

 found on supported CPUs

Central processing unit

The central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...

 with the PCH

Platform Controller Hub

The Platform Controller Hub is a family of Intel microchips. I/O Functions have been reassigned between the PCH, a new central hub, and the CPU. Some northbridge functions, the memory controller and PCI-e lanes, were integrated into the CPU while the PCH took over the remaining functions in...

 southbridge where display connectors are attached. It provides a path between an Intel processor and an Intel southbridge on a computer motherboard

Motherboard

In personal computers, a motherboard is the central printed circuit board in many modern computers and holds many of the crucial components of the system, providing connectors for other peripherals. The motherboard is sometimes alternatively known as the mainboard, system board, or, on Apple...

 which carries display data from the graphics controller (North Display) of the Intel processor package to the display connectors attached at some PCH (South Display) versions. It is based on DisplayPort

DisplayPort

DisplayPort is a digital display interface standard produced by the Video Electronics Standards Association . The specification defines a royalty-free digital interconnect for audio and video. The interface is primarily used to connect a video source to a display device such as a computer monitor...

 standard. Currently it supports 2 independent 4-bit fixed frequency links/channels/pipes at 2.7GT/s data rate. It was first used with the 2010 Core i3, i5 processors and H55, H57, Q57, 3450 southbridges released in 2010. FDI enabled processors require FDI enabled southbridge in order to utilize the graphics controller capability thus P55

Intel P55

The Intel P55 is the first desktop chipset from Intel based on the PCH chipset design. The P55 Express chipset uses the LGA 1156 socket. Compatible CPUs include the Core i3, i5, and i7 processor line along with a Pentium Processor G6950...

and PM55 based boards will not be able to take advantage of the graphics controller present on later processors. An FDI capable southbridge and CPU pair is not usable without the existence of the appropriate video connectors on the mainboard.

The following Intel southbridges support FDI:

• H55
• HM55
• H57
• HM57
• H67(B3)
• Q57
• Q65
• Q67
• QM57
• QS57
• 3450
• Z67
• Z68

The following processors support FDI:

• Celeron G1101
• Celeron P450x
• Celeron U340x
• Celeron E3600
• Celeron B810
• Core i3-5x0
• Core i5-6xx
• Core i7-610E
• Core i7-620LE
• Core i7-6x0UE
• Core i3-3xxM
• Core i3-330E
• Core i3-330UM
• Core i5-4xxM
• Core i5-430UM
• Core i5-520E
• Core i5-5xxM
• Core i5-5xxUM
• Core i7-6xxM
• Core i7-6xxLM
• Core i7-6xxUM
• Core i7-2600 (S,K)
• Core i5-2500 (T,S,K)
• Core i5-2400 (S)
• Core i5-2390T
• Core i5-2300
• Core i3-2120 (T)
• Core i3-2100 (T)
• Core i7-2920XM
• Core i7-2x20QM
• Core i7-2710QE
• Core i7-2657M
• Core i7-2649M
• Core i7-263xQM
• Core i7-262xM
• Core i7-2617M
• Core i5-2540M
• Core i5-2537M
• Core i5-2520M
• Core i5-2510E
• Core i5-2410M
• Core i3-2310M
• Pentium G69x0
• Pentium U5x00
• Pentium P6x00