** FAcToRS oF moTHeRboARD **

Mini-ITX is a 17 x 17 cm low-power motherboard form factor developed by VIA Technologies. Mini-ITX has similarities to ATX, microATX, FlexATX and BTX form factors, but is significantly smaller: 170 mm (6.7 inches) by 170mm. Mini-ITX boards can often be passively cooled due to their low power consumption architecture, which makes them useful for home theater systems, where fan noise can detract from the cinema experience.

History

In March 2001, VIA (a chipset manufacturer) released a reference design for an ITX motherboard, to promote the low power C3 they had bought from Cyrix, in combination with their chipsets. Designed by Robert Kuo, VIA's chief R&D expert, the 215 mm x 191 mm VT6009 ITX Reference Board was demonstrated in "Information PC" and set-top box form factors. He would later go on to design the Mini-ITX form factor. The ITX form factor was never taken up by manufacturers, who instead produced smaller boards based on the very similar 229 mm x 191 mm FlexATX form factor.

In October 2001, VIA announced their decision to create a new motherboard division, to provide standardised infrastructure for lower-cost PC form factors and focus on embedded devices. The result was the November 2001 release of the VT6010 Mini-ITX reference design, once again touted as an "Information PC", or low cost entry level x86 computing platform. Manufacturers were still reticent, but customer response was much more receptive, so VIA decided to manufacture and sell the boards themselves. In April 2002 the first Mini-ITX motherboards—VIA's EPIA 5000 (fanless 533 MHz Eden processor) and EPIA 800 (800 MHz C3)—were sold to industrial customers.