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Commell Mini-ITXMini-ITX motherboard format was specified by VIA in 2002 as a vehicle to promote their C3 CPU and chipsets. Since then many manufacturers worldwide have produced Mini-ITX form factor motherboards with almost any CPU imaginable. Commell have been at the forefront of advanced Mini-ITX motherboard developments being the first to announce the availability of the CPUs.
Mini-ITX is a specification for a motherboard measuring 170x170mm with a conventional I/O shield as used on larger scale motherboards. The layout on-board varies from manufacturer to manufacturer but most boards have a PCI slot in a standard location or laterly a PCIe slot and on many motherboards one or two MINI-PCI or Mini-PCIx slots. Mini-ITX power supplies range from standard on-board ATX connectors to rear panel DC connector jacks. Commell have been pioneers in Mini-ITX implementations using CPUs from manufacturers such as VIA, AMD, and Intel and can typically be relied upon to be first to introduce new CPUs as they become available. The latest being a Quad Core Mini-ITX motherboard for mobile applications. BVM has a long standing relationship with Commell as its official UK distributor and has been instrumental in estabishing Commell within the UK. BVM stock a broad range of Commell Mini-ITX motherboards in UK and can supply Mini-ITX with XP Embedded installed and custom Mini-ITX systems. In selecting a suitable Embedded Mini-ITX motherboard for embedded applications there are a number of steps. First is a consideration of the raw CPU performance required followed by the on-board functionalaity. Following this must be a consideration of power supply, system heat specifiaction and power consumption. In many ranges there are now two discrete lines of development, the mobile devices and desktop families of CPU and chipset. The mobile devices typical have much lower power demands but may fall behinf the desktop CPUs in terms of sheer instruction performance. A number of chassis and enclosures are available for Mini-ITX modules incorporating PSU and disc drives. Care needs to be taken in selecting a suitable enclosure that takes into acount the requirements of the Mini-ITX module of choice. For instance many of the later motherboards include CompactFlash or memory sockets on the reverse of the module. This is fine if a custom enclosure is being used but can cause mechanical problems with some of the earlier chassis. Similarly the modern motherboards with high performance CPUs produce much more heat that the slower simpler ones using low power chips. |
