Via demonstrates mini-itx 2.0 motherboard for Nano CPUs

Via has shown off its first motherboard for Nano CPUs at the Embedded System Conference 2008 in Boston, which is currently taking place. The VB8001 is the first motherboard based on Via’s mini-itx 2.0 specification.

The new motherboard, which Via on the ESC 2008 demonstrated, features Via’s new Nano CPU, which is clocked at 1.6GHz. The board has two ddr2 dimm connectors, which support up to 4GB of 667MHz memory. The CN896 northbridge on the motherboard contains Via’s Chrome9 igp and provides communication with the pci-e x16 connector for an external graphics card. The igp supports Directx 9.

Also the other chips on the VB8001 come from the Via stable. For example, the company uses its VT8237S chip for the southbridge part, the VT6130 gigabit Ethernet controller is used for the network connection and the HD audio is accounted for by the VT1708A chip. The I/O is provided by the VT1211 LPC Super I/O chip.

The motherboard also contains connections for VGA, serial and PS2. The board also has two USB 2.0 ports and three audio connectors. In addition, Via has equipped the motherboard with two SATA 2.0 ports, an ultra-DMA 133/100/66 connector, three USB pin headers for another six USB 2.0 connections and two connectors to which fans can be connected. Since the VB8001 motherboard is intended for the embedded market, it is also equipped with lpc, cir, fir and smbus connectors. At the bottom of the board is a mini-pci connector.

The VB8001 more than meets the specifications for the mini-itx 2.0 standard, which Via published in June. It is not known how much power the VB8001 draws from the mains.