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Via launches teensy motherboard

The Taiwanese company believes its 4.8-inch-square Epia N-Series Nano-ITX has an edge over Intel's competing XScale processors.

Stephen Shankland Former Principal Writer
Stephen Shankland worked at CNET from 1998 to 2024 and wrote about processors, digital photography, AI, quantum computing, computer science, materials science, supercomputers, drones, browsers, 3D printing, USB, and new computing technology in general. He has a soft spot in his heart for standards groups and I/O interfaces. His first big scoop was about radioactive cat poop.
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  • Shankland covered the tech industry for more than 25 years and was a science writer for five years before that. He has deep expertise in microprocessors, digital photography, computer hardware and software, internet standards, web technology, and more.
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Stephen Shankland
Via Technologies has begun selling a new supersmall motherboard that's just 4.8 inches square and comes with an x86 chip compatible with Intel's Pentium processor.

Via's Epia N-Series Nano-ITX is based on the Eden-N processor running at speeds of up to 1GHz, the Taiwanese company announced Friday at the CeBit computer show in Hannover, Germany.

Via showed the Nano-ITX at the Computex trade show in Taiwan in 2003, saying it was geared for embedded computing applications rather than standard PCs.

Intel aims its XScale processors--competing chips that are not compatible with Pentium--at embedded computing tasks such as handheld computers, but Via believes the software compatibility of x86 chips will give them an edge.

Via also announced that a retailer called Mini-ITX.com has signed on as a customer. The retailer will begin selling in the second quarter of 2004 a digital entertainment device called Nanode that uses the tiny motherboard, Mini-ITX.com said.

The Nanode has video and audio outputs, USB (Universal Serial Bus) connectors, and ports for Ethernet and a keyboard.

The Nanode was designed by Hoojum Design, a United Kingdom-based firm.