Shuttle attempts standardised motherboard design for laptops

Posted on 14 Jan 2010 at 12:10

Barebones manufacturer Shuttle has unveiled a design for laptop motherboards which could make upgrading a laptop much easier.

Owners of desktop PCs have long been used to the ability to upgrade their computer's motherboard and other components very easily due to the standardized ATX motherboard form factor. Laptops have lacked a similar standard to ATX, so laptop manufacturers use their own customised, proprietary designs which can make upgrades and repairs trickier and more expensive compared to a PC.

Shuttle, best known for its range of do-it-yourself barebones desktop PCs, has unveiled its SPA laptop motherboard design which it hopes will be adopted by the rest of the industry.

Shuttle's SPA (Shuttle PCB Assembly) motherboards are designed for laptops with 13.3in screens or larger, as well as compact all-in-one desktop PCs. The smaller µSPA (Micro SPA) motherboards are designed for netbooks with 10.1in displays or larger. Shuttle plans to introduce models that support Intel, AMD and VIA processors.

Shuttle's SPA initiative is admirable and if it succeeds, it could make it easier and cheaper for small and medium sized computer manufacturers to produce laptops. We're skeptical about its chances for success though. The most comparable initiative is Nvidia's MXM technology from a few years ago which never succeeded in its aim of producing easily upgradeable, standardized graphics cards for laptops.

Further details will be available from Shuttle's SPA website on March 1.

Author: Alan Lu

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