Motherboard Design Process

MBRFan writes "MBReview has posted the latest revision of their 'Motherboards - The Designing Process' article. This article covers the design process for modern motherboards, and also goes over some of the most common components that can be found. Definite read for information lovers, though beware, it'll take a while to read!"

Comments

It would have been interesting

[antifoidulus]

if they also gave a little insight into what goes into the manufacturing process as well. After all, you can design the best board there is, but if you have trouble making it in large quantities, it's not going to be successful. Cost and ease of manufacture should be factors in any engineering decision.

Re:Not bad, but

[Billy69]

Erm, what happens on the mobo is really just a case of regulation, not a separate 'power supply' as such.

And board-level power regulation goes back at least as far as the IBM XT (yup, I had one, they had 7805 5v regulators on them)

But to answer the question I think you are asking, which is why doesn't the PSU supply the processor voltages, you have to think about the number of different processor and interface voltages there have been over the last few years. Processors have gone from using 5v logic supplies down to what, 0.8v now, via dozens of different steps in between. So to supply the voltage direct from the PSU would require either a PSU tied to a specific motherboard which was tied to a specific small group of processors, or a PSU with about 30 different voltage outputs. Both of these options are a lot more complex and painful than just regulating the voltage on the motherboard.