Motherboard
The motherboard, also known as a mainboard, is the main circuit board in any electronic system. It's what holds together all the components needed for an electronic system to function. Although there may be other circuit boards attached to the motherboard, the motherboard is the largest.
Composition
The painted, base material of a motherboard is composed of fiberglass yarn strands that have been woven together and coated with a liquid resin and set to dry. This combination of woven fiberglass and resin is sent through an oven at a high temperature. When it comes out, it hardens and becomes stronger than it was before. This finished, very-hard, lightweight material, called pre-preg, is layered together and then painted, typically green. It forms what is the base material of the motherboard. This material acts as an electrical insulator and holds everything in place.
Copper is used to form the communication pathways that connect all the different parts on the motherboard, and is used because of its excellent ability to conduct electricity.
“On-board” is a term used to refer to anything that is permanently embedded onto the motherboard. Electrical parts are soldered onto the motherboard. These parts include transistors and resistors. Other parts that are attached to the motherboard are able to be removed in the future so that they can be upgraded. The CPU is an example of a part that is usually removable.
Parts that are not "on-board" can be bought as a card. Some of these parts include RAM and CPU. Computers today usually have a memory port, 2 or more USB ports, a parallel port (for use with old printers usually), audio & microphone jacks, a network port and ports for the keyboard and mouse. There are also some rare motherboards that have plugs only for very specific parts.[1]
All of the slots and plugs both inside and outside the computer case are shaped a certain way to accept a certain type of part. Some will not even accept parts even one generation behind, such as the CPU and memory. Others, like the video plug have not changed in years. Some of the plugs, such as the video, keyboard and mouse plugs, are a special color. These colors make it easier to pair the plug to the port. The motherboard may also be referred to as the PCB which stands for ‘printed circuit board’, though it is essentially a gigantic PCB and can be considered the 'primary' PCB.
Motherboard Media
Dell Precision T3600 System Motherboard, used in professional CAD Workstations. Manufactured in 2012
Motherboard for a personal desktop computer; showing the typical components and interfaces which are found on a motherboard. This model follows the Baby AT (form factor), used in many desktop PCs.
Mainboard of a NeXTcube computer (1990) with microprocessor Motorola 68040 operated at 25 MHz and a digital signal processor Motorola 56001 at 25 MHz, which was directly accessible via a connector on the back of the casing
The Octek Jaguar V motherboard from 1993. This board has few onboard peripherals, as evidenced by the 6 slots provided for ISA cards and the lack of other built-in external interface connectors. Note the large AT keyboard connector at the back right is its only peripheral interface.
The motherboard of a Samsung Galaxy SII; almost all functions of the device are integrated into a very small board.
Block diagram of an early 2000s motherboard, which supports many on-board peripheral functions as well as several expansion slots
A motherboard of a Vaio E series laptop (right)
A microATX motherboard with some faulty capacitors
References
- ↑ "HOW TO CONNECT THE MOTHERBOARD TO THE FRONT PANEL - INSTRUCTIONS". Geek Nose (Russian). Retrieved 30 March 2016.