VIA Technologies is expected to launch a very small format motherboard this month. Called the mini-ITX, the fully integrated mobo measures up at 170mm x170mm (yes, it's square), making 50 per cent smaller than the FlexATX form factor, VIA claims.
The Mini-ITX is supplied with an 800MHz Eden x.86 C3 processor (in EBGA packaging), incorporating 128K L1 and 64K L2 cache; integrated AGP2 graphics 2X; PC100/133 SDRAM support etc. You can check out more spec here.
The board will retail for around $100, and gets its first mainstream outing at CeBIT this week.
The Mini ITX is targeted at the embedded market - expect most units to disappear into printer routers and the like; but VIA is also reporting 'grassroots interest' in the product from home PC and commercial system builders.
The Mini-ITX may be small, but it is not 40 per cent smaller than any other form factor around, as VIA believes. The Danish firm, maker of the M-Series PC, deploys a 157mm x146mm mobo.
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