The joy of mini-ITX

VIA EPIA 'Mini ITX' compact SBC (Single Board Computer)






Commell LV-675 -- [Dec. 14, 2005] -- Claimed to be the first mini-ITX board to support Pentium M and Celeron M processors with a 533 MHz front side bus (FSB), the LV-675 comes with drivers for embedded Linux.


Kontron 886LCD-M/mITX(BGA) -- [Nov. 2, 2005] -- A passively cooled, Linux-ready mini-ITX motherboard with a soldered-down BGA (ball-grid array) Intel processor and long-term availability, the 886LCD-M/mITX(BGA) has a 600MHz mobile Celeron processor, and targets cost-sensitive, low-power applications, such as POS (point-of-sales/service), gaming, banking, measurement, medical, and industrial computing.


Kontron 786LCD/mITX -- [Sep. 28, 2005] -- A mini-ITX board targeting cost-constrained, high-volume applications such as gaming, POS (point-of-sales/service), data communications, and medical equipment, the 786LCD/mITX is based on a mature Intel chipset yet supports USB 2.0, SATA, FireWire, and LVDS, Kontron says.


Arbor Technology ITX-i7435 -- [Sep. 27, 2005] -- A mini-ITX motherboard graced with a PCI Express x16 slot, and targeting multimedia, gaming, and other applications requiring high-quality graphics performance, the ITX-i7435 supports several Socket 478 Pentium M/Celeron M processors.


Kontron 886LCD/mITX -- [Aug. 28, 2005] -- A highly integrated mini-ITX motherboard with Pentium 4 and Celeron processor options up to 3 GHz, the 886LCD/mITX includes an AGP/DVO slot and targets CPU-intensive, cost-sensitive industrial applications.


Axiomtek SBC86800 board and EM603201 case -- [Jul. 7, 2005] -- A mini-ITX board supporting Intel Pentium-4 and Celeron processors, and available with a rolled steel micro-box with 180-Watt ATX power supply.


iBase MB720 -- [Apr. 29, 2005] -- A Via-based mini-ITX board that uses the same chipset used in newer Via mini-ITX boards, the MB720 is available with an LVDS module supporting 4:3 and 16:9 LCD displays. It targets industrial, gaming, medical, digital entertainment and other applications requiring stable and long lifecycle platforms.


Via ships dual-processor mini-ITX board -- [Mar. 11, 2005] -- Via is now sampling its first dual-processor mini-ITX board. The DP-310 features dual 1GHz Eden-N processors, along with gigabit Ethernet, SATA, a media-processing graphics system, and more. It targets high-density server systems, appliance servers, and compact embedded digital devices.

World's fastest Mini-ITX mobo? -- [Feb. 18, 2005] -- Powered by Pentium M processors at up to 2.3 GHz, the P620 Hawk is crammed with interfaces and expansion buses, and may also be the first Mini-ITX mobo to offer PMC expansion.


Coventive Uranus -- [Jan 4, 2005] -- A mini-ITX SBC (single-board computer) targeting Linux-based DVRs (digital video recorders), wireless TVs, network MPEG encoding boxes, and surveillance systems. The Uranus board is based on a MIP64 Toshiba SoC (system-on-chip), along with a Vweb MPEG coprocessor, and comes with a Linux SDK (software development kit).


Commell LV-667 -- [Dec. 17, 2004] -- Commell is shipping a mini-ITX board said to offer advanced graphics features, based on Via's latest northbridge. The LV-667 is available with a variety of video port options, and targets PVRs, set-top boxes, gaming machines, kiosks, POS (point-of-sales/service) devices, and more.


Toshiba mini-ITX-based PVR ref design -- [Oct. 18, 2004] -- Toshiba America Electronic Components (TAEC) has released a hardware/software reference design targeting digital multimedia appliances with sub-$100 BOMs (bills-of-material). The reference design, designated AVM49R, includes a mini-ITX board with a dedicated MPEG-1/2/4 codec chip alongside a 333MHz MIPS RISC-based SoC.


VIA dual-processor (DP) mini-ITX board -- Oct. 6, 2004 -- Via expects to ship its long-awaited "SP" mini-ITX board in November, followed in early 2005 by a "DP" model with dual nanoBGA embedded processors -- quite likely the world's first dual processor mini-ITX mobo. Both mini-ITX boards will feature a new northbridge supporting faster FSB (front-side bus), southbridge interconnect, and DDR memory speeds, and hardware MPEG-4 acceleration.


New VIA mini-ITX board targets vertically challenged apps -- June 24, 2004 -- VIA is shipping an ultra-low profile mini-ITX mainboard suitable for Linux-based flat TVs, LCD-panel computers, and other vertically challenged devices. The Epia MS uses a minimalistic I/O backplate and SODIMM memory for a slimmer form-factor, and is VIA's first mini-ITX board available with a fanless 1GHz Eden embedded processor.

Next-gen VIA mobo touts speed, security, MPEG-4 -- May 27, 2004 -- VIA will preview its next-generation mini-ITX board for the consumer electronics market at next week's Computex 2004 in Taipei. The EPIA SP features a new graphics and memory controller hub (GMCH) supporting faster front-side bus (FSB), memory, and southbridge interconnect speeds. It also features a C3 processor clocked at 1.3GHz, integrated PadLock Hardware Security Suite, and MPEG-4 acceleration.

Mini-ITX board boasts die-shrunk Pentium M -- May 25, 2004 -- Single-board computer vendor Lippert announced mini-ITX form-factor board support for Intel's new Dothan processor, a 90nm die-shrink of the Pentium M released today by Intel. The Dothan chip includes 170 million transistors, compared with 77 million on the previous Pentium M, making lots more room for on-chip memory caches, according to Lippert.

Centrino-like mini-ITX board available passively cooled -- Jan. 17, 2004 -- German single-board computer vendor Lippert is shipping a passively cooled version of its Centrino-like Thunderbird mini-ITX board based on an Intel Pentium M running at 1.3GHz. An actively cooled version running at 1.6GHz has been available since mid-December, 2003. Additionally, Lippert is readying a number of mini-PCI expansion devices and PCI riser cards for the boards.


Transmeta spins Crusoe-based mini-ITX mobo -- Jan. 07, 2004 -- Transmeta introduces two reference platforms to support device and system designs based on its Efficeon TM8600 and Crusoe TM5900 processors. Both platforms support Linux. Interestingly, the Crusoe TM5900 reference platform (pictured on the left) is implemented in the increasingly popular mini-ITX motherboard form-factor.


Mini-ITX P4M motherboard soars to 1700MHz and beyond -- Dec. 17, 2003 -- Taiwanese industrial computer board supplier Commell pushes the speed envelope for the compact mini-ITX mini motherboard form-factor, with the release of a mini-ITX board that supports Intel's mobile Pentium 4 processors at clock rates in excess of 1.7GHz.


Computing Client Development Center of Beijing launches low-end mini-ITX board for thin clients -- Dec. 11, 2003 -- The GSTB-3602 mini-ITX board and reference design kit is the very first product from Computing Client Development Center of Beijing, a joint venture between Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and BLX IC Design Corp. Ltd.


First Pentium M based mini-ITX SBC runs Linux Sep. 03, 2003 -- Lippert GmbH introduces what is claimed to be the first mini-ITX form-factor motherboard to be based on an Intel Pentium M processor. The compact (6.7 x 6.7 in.) Thunderbird SBC features a Centrino-like architecture, with Intel northbridge and southbridge and a mini-PCI slot, and runs Linux, the company says.


2W ARM9-based mini-ITX board comes with Debian Linux -- Oct. 29, 2003 -- Simtec Electronics launches a mini-ITX based evaluation board that, in the highest specification of several available configurations, draws just 2 watts. The Simtec Samsung 2410 evaluation board is based on a Samsung S3C2410 ARM9 processor and is supplied with a Linux kernel, Debian cross-development environment, and several sample applications.


First mobile Pentium 4 mini-ITX SBC? -- Jun. 16, 2003 -- Commell announces what is claimed to be the first mini-ITX form-factor single-board computer (SBC) to be based on an Intel mobile Pentium 4 processor. Commell said its LV-670M SBC supports Linux and other embedded and desktop operating systems and targets VoD (video on demand), DVR (Digital Video Recorder), digital video broadcasting (DVB), streaming, surveillance, compression (MPEG), interactive servers, POS, Kiosk, ATM, Panel PC, transaction workstation, and terminal applications.


The joy of mini-ITX . . . -- Jun. 12, 2003 -- The Globe and Mail's "Chic Geek" Ian Johnson has discovered the mini-ITX motherboard form-factor, and he likes what he sees. In his article titled "Mini-ITX: Incredibly Tiny, eXceptionally cool," Johnson notes that "Mini-ITX motherboards are just starting to go mainstream, and they're real beauties if you want to save money and space. They're about the size of a CD jewel case and sell for between $75 and $200 (U.S.), depending on the speed of their built-in processor. All you have to do is add a case, memory and a hard disk, load an operating system and plug in a monitor, and you're off . . . "