motherboard
Also called the "system board," "main board" "base board" or "logic board," it is the primary printed circuit board in a computer or other electronic device. In a modern desktop computer, the motherboard contains the CPU and memory sockets as well as the chipset, which houses the control circuits for all the peripheral devices. It also has a PCI-Express slot for a high-end display adapter and PCI slots for additional peripherals. Laptop motherboards have no expansion slots for more peripherals. See
CPU,
chipset,
desktop board,
PCI and
controller.
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| PC Motherboard |
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| This earlier Baby AT style motherboard required plug-in expansion cards for almost all the peripheral devices. The ISA slots are long gone, and the AGP slot was replaced with PCI-Express. |
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| Expansion Cards |
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| On earlier PCs, expansion cards were required for almost all peripheral devices except keyboard and mouse. Today, enthusiasts may plug in a faster display adapter, but most peripheral control circuits are already on the motherboard. |
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| The Mother of All Motherboards |
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| This is the front and back of the prototype of the first IBM PC motherboard in 1981. The chips are wired together on a "breadboard." (Images courtesy of International Business Machines Corporation. Unauthorized use not permitted.) |
motherboard [
′məth·ər‚bȯrd]
(computer science)
A common pathway over which information is transmitted between the hardware devices (the central processing unit, memory, and each of the peripheral control units) in a microcomputer.
| (hardware) | motherboard - (mobo) The main printed circuit board in an
electronic device, particularly a computer, which may contain
sockets that accept additional boards ("daughter-boards").
In a personal computer, the motherboard contains the bus,
the microprocessor, and integrated circuits used for
controlling any built-in peripherals such as the keyboard,
text and graphics display, serial ports and parallel ports, joystick, and mouse interfaces. | |
