VIA Technologies, Inc. a leading provider of chipsets, processors and platform solutions, has launched its latest innovation, the VIA EPIA EX-Series Mini-ITX mainboards for consumer electronics. The new mainboards are the first of company’s compact platforms to be powered by the high performance 1.5GHz or fanless 1.0GHz VIA C7(r) VIA CX700M2 system media processor.

 

The mainboard has an average operating electricity consumption of 13.6 watts for digital media devices. Tailored for x86-based consumer electronics, the VIA EPIA EX comes with full consumer I/O, including ports for composite, component and S-Video, S/PDIF audio, and onboard connectors for LVDS and DVI displays, with USB2.0 and IEEE1394 peripheral connectivity, full featured SATA II RAID, and 10/100Mbps Fast Ethernet for unobstructed broadband connectivity, with a Gigabit Ethernet option.

 

"We see the consumer electronics market increasingly adopting the x86 platform for the extra performance and comprehensive compatibility with all popular media formats, and the fully integrated, off the shelf VIA EPIA EX fills this need perfectly," said Daniel Wu, Assistant Vice President at the VIA Platform Solutions Division of Taiwan-based VIA Technologies, in a press release.

 

"Leveraging the power efficient VIA processors and the extensive feature set of the VIA CX700M2 media system processor, the VIA EPIA EX speaks directly to the demands of CE developers," added Wu.

The VIA CX700M2 processor is an integrated digital media IGP chipset that combines the VIA UniChrome Pro II 2D/3D graphics core with a wide range of advanced video and audio technologies, including hardware decoding acceleration of MPEG-2/-4 and WMV9 video, a built-in HDTV encoder up to 1080i, 720p output, and VIA Vinyl Multi-channel HD audio.

 

Equipped with the advanced features, the compact mainboard eliminates the requirement for add-in cards and compatibility testing. This will in turn reduce the developing cost for the SIs and OEMs.

 

The VIA EPIA EX-Series Mini-ITX mainboard is available for developers right away.

Divya Narain is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To see more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.