WonderMedia chips on VIA Pico-ITX board

The VAB-600 Pico-ITX board from VIA doesn't feature a VIA processor - or well not really anyway. Instead it features an ARM Cortex-A9 processor from VIA's subsidiary, WonderMedia. This has been paired up with WonderMedia's Mali-400 graphics. Overall this keeps the power consumption of the system down really low and the costs too, making suitable for an Android or Linux-based setup. 1GB of built in RAM should be ample, along with 4GB of storage.

VIA's new Pico-ITX board comes with everything you need to in-vehicle setup

One of the first things that case modders thought of when VIA brought out the Mini-ITX motherboard was - let's put a PC in a car. Many kits and chassis and designs have come along since. VIA's latest Pico-ITX mainboard is designed for in-car, or in-vehicle use, as the snazzy title to VIA's Press Release attests: VIA Announces Latest VIA Pico-ITX Board to Jump Start In-Vehicle Innovation, VIA VAB-600.

Interestingly, this Pico-ITX board does not feature a VIA CPU; it has an ARM Cortex instead.

"Based on the ultra compact Pico-ITX form factor, measuring 10 cm x 7.2 cm, the VIA VAB-600 combines an 800MHz ARM Cortex-A9 processor with a built-in 2D/3D graphics engine, supporting OpenGL® ES 2.0, to deliver a smooth user experience and superb multimedia performance. Customers can leverage our starter kits which include a VIA VAB-600 Pico-ITX board, VAB-600-A I/O card, VAB-600-C TTL Converter card, 7” touch screen TTL panel, cables and 18W AC adaptor.
Rear I/O includes one Mini HDMI port, two Mini-USB 2.0 ports, one 10/100 Ethernet port and 1 12~24V DC-in jack. 

On-board features include 4GB eMMC Flash memory, 1GB DDR3 SDRAM, one DVO connector for TTL or LVDS display, two COM ports, SPI, one USB 2.0 connector, one Mini Card slot (supports USB 2.0 connectivity for optional WiFi module VNT9271B6050), support for one SIM card slot, touch screen connector, front pin headers for line-in/out and MIC-in, I2C and GPIO pin header, and one battery charger connector with smart battery function."

VIA announces tough little PC

The new VIA ARMOS-800 is designed to go where PCs don't normally last. This tough little beast, looking like an animal ready to defend in spikey black, can operate at extreme temperatures, supporting a range of -40° up to 80°C. It's passively cooled and has a peak operating power drain of a mere 3.14W TDP. Being based on the ARM based VIA VAB-800 Pico-ITX board, the complete package is only 150mm x 46mm x 108mm.

"The VIA ARMOS-800 industrial system is an ultra-compact solution designed to take full advantage of the super power-efficient, ARM based VIA VAB-800 Pico-ITX board, making it easy to create a broad spectrum of easy to assemble, fanless system designs for a wide variety of embedded applications."

VIA Pico-ITX, a boutique item with a niche of its own

Considering the price of the VIA EPIA P-910 Pico-ITX mainboard against the $49 you can spend on a VIA APC or a mid-range cost of a Mini-ITX board, where does the Pico-ITX fit in? TechRepublic thinks there is a niche there that it fulfils:

"If you are truly limited in space for a traditional computer and are looking for a system that can mount behind a desktop monitor or are building Windows-powered kiosks, and in-car PCs, the EPIA-P910 might be worth taking a look at, despite the high price. Because VIA doesn’t have the market penetration that Intel or AMD has with their x86/x64 products, the company tries these interesting form factors as a way to carve out a market for itself with boutique items."

VIA's latest EPIA board offers Quad core & 3D

VIA last week launched a new Pico-ITX board which features two stand-out features that have not been seen before in this form factor:

1) The VIA QuadCore E-Series processor
2) DirectX 11 support, for richer textures as well as 3D stereoscopic display

Here's some more information about the specs of this little powder keg known as the EPIA-P910:

• Compact 10cm x 7.2cm Pico-ITX form factor
• High-performance 64-bit VIA QuadCore E-Series processor
• Latest VIA VX11H media system processor with DirectX11 support
• Flawless 3D and HD video performance up to 1080p
• Supports 2 USB 3.0 and 6 USB 2.0 ports
• HDMI, VGA and one single-channel 24-bit LVDS support
• Supports high-bandwidth DDR3 1333MHz memory, up to 8GB
• Support for two SATA
• HD audio support
• Supports digital I/O

VIA adds an ARM processor to its Pico-ITX board range

VIA is branching out and now offering a Pico-ITX board that does not feature a VIA CPU, in fact surprisingly it doesn't feature  Wondermedia ARM processor either, but a Freescale 800Mhz or 1GHz processor.

The VAB-800 features an integrated GPU that is not named, with support for up to 1080p. Other features are akin to VIA Embedded products in general: the lower power consumption, and cramming everything needed for an industrial or in-vehicle application into a tiny package.


Compact 10cm x 7.2cm Pico-ITX form factor
Choice of 800MHz or 1GHz Freescale Cortex-A8 SoC
Supports two independent, integrated graphics processing units (GPU) for 3D/2D graphics acceleration and dual display support
Flawless HD video performance up to 1080p
Supports up to 4 USB 2.0 ports
Mini HDMI, VGA and two single-channel 24-bit LVDS support
Up 64GB on-board eMMC Flash memory
1GB high performance DDR3 SDRAM
Support for one SATA, two Boot flash pin headers and CAN Bus HD audio support
Wide operating temperature range from -20°C to 70°C

More information.

VIA announces new Pico-ITX with HD and 2 Mini-PCIe

The new EPIA-P830 certainly packs more into the Pico-ITX form factor than ever before. Let's run over the checklist:

Latest VIA Nano processor - check, it has a 1.2GHz Nano E-Series
HD 1080p - check, the VIA VX900 delivers this
Expansion options - check, 2 mini-PCIe ports provides massive amounts of options
HD audio - check, including SPDIF, 6 channel and DTS capable
Advanced memory support - check, DDR3 supported
Networking - check, gigabit Ethernet, plus you've got those mini-PCIe for any other type of wireless connectivity you need
Ports - check, there's 1 channel LVDS display support, an additional 5 x USB 2.0 ports, an LPC connector, SMBus connector, PS/2 support, audio jacks, LVDS, 4 pairs of DIO and two UART ports

Anything more would be just greedy! The Press Release doesn't mention when it will be available.

New Pico-ITX board with a Nano

Finally, VIA has released a Pico-ITX board featuring the VIA Nano processor. The 64-bit superscalar processor will give a performance boost to the platform. The new EPIA-P820 board can also be paired with a new VIA AMOS chassis, the 3001 model. The AMOS-3001 is the fifth in the series, all designed as IPC chassis that have thermal cooling properties, can withstand great temperature variances, and are shock resistant. The AMOS-3001 also offers various mounting options for industrial use and I/O ports on both sides.

But I digress, let's get back to the new Pico-ITX board. The Press Release states that
“Never before have developers had the opportunity to harness full 64-bit, superscalar processing in spaces as small as the palm of your hand ... " and although no company's Press Release statements should ever be taken at face value - they do have a point. It's pretty impressive that embedded hardware solutions have come this far.

The EPIA-P820 supports 2GB of DDR2 RAM, a 1.2GHz U2500 Nano processor and the VX855 digital media processor which supports HD playback. This makes it ideal for billboards or information kiosks that need super graphics capabilities. But it's also suited to industrial applications that just need a bit more horsepower.

EPIA-P720 attracts attention of HTPC builders

The recently announced VIA EPIA-P720, the Pico-ITX motherboard, that can play 1080p and is passively cooled, has raised some eyebrows over at MaximumPC. In the comments to their short article about the palm-sized board, their readers seem most interested in sticking the tiny mobo in their lounge rooms.

"Though the presention mentions public displays, not htpc's, so I'm curious if they think it would be good as such. If so then I think this is an insanely awesome product. One major issue with htpc's is the size of the box. Now you can have one the size of your $30 dvd player."

"While mobos are flat, a gpu isn't. And rolling with mATX is still large. (as in the sese that your HTPC is about the size of an old XBOX :P)This type of PC would own at my place. My parents would love this for a computer. Theoretically, you could make an HTPC, oh say the size of a Gamecube, about the size of a lunch box."

"sounds like this mobo is like the perfect htpc mobo - at least on a term of size - that only does what an htpc should do.."

Cute Pico-ITX cases

When this blogger researched a short piece about the VIA EPIA PX 1000 Pico-ITX motherboard, they found five cases available for it on Mini-ITX.com.
This is my favorite of them all. It looks like a PC book.