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Moore's Law for Motherboards
An anonymous reader writes "VIA CEO Wenchi Chen revealed a business card-sized motherboard billed as the 'world's first industry-standard form-factor for PC/phone convergence,' at Computex this week. The mobile-ITX" board measures 3 x 1.8 inches. It's half the size of pico-ITX, which was half the size of nano-ITX, which, in turn, was half-the size of mini-ITX — which was already small. It's not clear whether VIA will make these tiny motherboards available to end users, or if they will only be sold directly to device makers, but generally all of VIA's tiny motherboard formats have spread around to other suppliers and become widely available."
That's 7.62 cm x 4.57 cm, for everyone reading this who isn't American.
Please put all smart-ass/pro-SAE comments about the metric system below this post, thanks.
Various companies like Advantech have long sold expensive PC motherboards (sometimes with soldered cpu, sometimes socketed) that are dramatically smaller than the average. Most of the connectors are on headers, and you can use them or not, as you see fit. For example many people will never need serial or parallel connections - while others will never need USB. Their systems (the only ones I ever researched much) come in sizes ranging from PC/104 (which is to say, same size as a PC/104 card) to 5.25" storage device size (approx. footprint.) And some of them will run on automotive voltages, making a picopsu or similar unnecessary. But they are damned expensive! If VIA brings out a truly teensy motherboard it will fulfill a need I am currently experiencing - the need for a full PC that will fit into an ISO DIN slot. I have the entertainment system part in the car already, now I need the navigation/vehicle monitoring system to finish up, and I don't want to spend the $750+ it would take to get decent horsepower from one of the classic SBC-providing companies.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"