计算机英语--Motherboard

Motherboard

In personal computers, a motherboard is the central printed circuit board (PCB) in many modern computers and holds many of the crucial components of the system, while providing connectors for other peripherals. The motherboard is sometimes alternatively known as the mainboard, system board, or, on Apple computers, the logic board.[1] It is also sometimes casually shortened to mobo.[2]

A motherboard for a desktop personal computer

Contents

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1 History

2 Overview

2.1 CPU sockets

2.2 Integrated peripherals

2.3 Peripheral card slots

2.4 Temperature and reliability

2.5 Form factor

3 Bootstrapping using the BIOS

4 See also

5 References

6 External links History

Prior to the advent of the microprocessor, a computer was usually built in a card-cage case or mainframe with components connected by a backplane consisting of a set of slots themselves connected with wires; in very old designs the wires were discrete connections between card connector pins, but printed circuit boards soon became the standard practice. The Central Processing Unit, memory and peripherals were housed on individual printed circuit boards which plugged into the backplane.

During the late 1980s and 1990s, it became economical to move an increasing number of peripheral functions onto the motherboard (see below). In the late 1980s, motherboards began to include single ICs (called Super I/O chips) capable of supporting a set of low-speed peripherals: keyboard, mouse, floppy disk drive, serial ports, and parallel ports. As of the late 1990s, many personal computer motherboards supported a full range of audio, video, storage, and networking functions without the need for any expansion cards at all; higher-end systems for 3D gaming and computer graphics typically retained only the graphics card as a separate component.

The early pioneers of motherboard manufacturing were Micronics, Mylex, AMI, DTK, Hauppauge, Orchid Technology, Elitegroup, DFI, and a number of Taiwan-based manufact