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Concept
Motherboard
Summary
A motherboard (also called mainboard, main circuit board, MB, mboard, backplane board, base board, system board, mobo; or in Apple computers logic board) is the main printed circuit board (PCB) in general-purpose computers and other expandable systems. It holds and allows communication between many of the crucial electronic components of a system, such as the central processing unit (CPU) and memory, and provides connectors for other peripherals. Unlike a backplane, a motherboard usually contains significant sub-systems, such as the central processor, the chipset's input/output and memory controllers, interface connectors, and other components integrated for general use.
Motherboard means specifically a PCB with expansion capabilities. As the name suggests, this board is often referred to as the "mother" of all components attached to it, which often include peripherals, interface cards, and daughterboards: sound cards, video cards, network cards, host bus adapters, TV tuner cards, IEEE 1394 cards, and a variety of other custom components.
Similarly, the term mainboard describes a device with a single board and no additional expansions or capability, such as controlling boards in laser printers, television sets, washing machines, mobile phones, and other embedded systems with limited expansion abilities.
Prior to the invention of the microprocessor, the CPU of a digital computer consisted of multiple circuit boards in a card-cage case with components connected by a backplane containing a set of interconnected sockets into which the circuit boards are plugged; In very old designs, copper wires were the discrete connections between card connector pins, but printed circuit boards soon became the standard practice. The central processing unit (CPU), memory, and peripherals were housed on individually printed circuit boards, which were plugged into the backplane.
In older microprocessor-based systems, the CPU and some support circuitry would fit on a single CPU board, with memory and peripherals on additional boards, all plugged into the backplane.
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