Thursday, April 10, 2008

Motherboard

A motherboard is the central or primary circuit board making up a complex electronic system, such as a modern computer. It is also known as a mainboard, baseboard, system board, planar board or, on Apple computers, a logic board, and is sometimes abbreviated as mobo.

Most motherboards produced today are designed for so-called IBM-compatible computers, which held over 96% of the global personal computer market in 2005.[2] Motherboards for IBM-compatible computers are specifically covered in the PC motherboard article.

A motherboard, like a backplane, provides the electrical connections by which the other components of the system communicate, but unlike a backplane also contains the central processing unit and other subsystems such as real time clock, and some peripheral interfaces.

A typical desktop computer is built with the microprocessor, main memory, and other essential components on the motherboard. Other components such as external storage, controllers for video display and sound, and peripheral devices are typically attached to the motherboard via edge connectors and cables, although in modern computers it is increasingly common to integrate these "peripherals" into the motherboard

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