Since VIA Technologies’ announcement of the ITX form factor in 2001, The Taiwanese manufacturer has been on the leading edge in the miniaturization of computer motherboard form factors with its Mini-ITX, Nano-ITX, and today, with the Pico-ITX form factor, the worlds smallest x86 mainboard.

The VIA VT6047 Pico-ITX form factor, first announced in January 2007 and later demonstrated at CeBIT, continues with VIA’s “Small is Beautiful” design strategy while shrinking the x86 platform into smaller systems and opening the door into a whole new device category.

 ”As with the Mini-ITX and Nano-ITX form factors before it, this new platform has raised the excitement level among enthusiasts and customers alike, firing the imagination an almost unlimited range of what were previously impossibly small systems,” said Richard Brown, Vice President of Corporate Marketing, VIA Technologies. 

Measuring at just under 3in x 4in (10mm x 7.2mm) makes VIA’s new mainboard just a ‘bit’ larger than a deck of playing cards and occupies 50% less area than its predecessor, the Nano-ITX.

The process of achieving these levels of miniaturization has been made possible by VIA’s enhanced power efficient design strategy, which has allowed the significant reduction of mainboard size due to cooler running silicon components.

“The Pico-ITX represents VIA’s commitment to spearhead x86 innovation through our proven technology leadership in driving down the platform size,” added Brown.

The Pico-ITX mainboard has specifically been developed to be powered by the energy efficient VIA processor platforms such as the fanless VIA Eden processor and the VIA C7, recently selected by HP to power its new super efficient line of PCs in China.

VIA’s new form factor is intended for use in an ultra-small footprint chassis, including embedded PC reference systems as shown below.

Embedded PC reference design (USB ports on left)

Given the Pico-ITX’s size, its specs are pretty impressive. It handles a VIA processor up to 1.5GHz with a maximum of 1GB DDR2 memory. The hard drive and other storage devices connect through Ultra DMA 133. 

The board comes integrated with VIA’s  UniChrome Pro II AGP graphics (LVDS and DVI out), VIA’s VT1708A audio system with a 7.1 channel audio out, and an optional TV encoder supporting NTSC and PAL systems.

Connectivity is achieved through a 4-port expandable USB header, one COM port header, one RJ45 Ethernet port, a CRT connector, and an optional multi-media connector for HDTV and capture port expansion.

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Entry was posted on Saturday, April 21st, 2007 at 7:06 am under Technology.

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