The ultra compact Mini-ITX form factor was introduced by VIA in November 2001 as part of VIA's open industry-wide Total Connectivity initiative. The Mini-ITX is more than 33% smaller than the FlexATX form factor and VIA launched its own VIA EPIA Mini-ITX mainboard in March this year following the phenomenal interest and excitement over the fanless VIA Eden™ Platform and the VIA Mini-ITX form factor. The VIA EPIA Mini-ITX comes with a rich feature set that includes a low power x86 processor, onboard AGP graphics and audio, TV-Out, Ethernet networking and USB 1.1 that are currently not available on other small form factor motherboards.

"With the availability of the Mini-ITX, manufacturers now have the right platform to bring to market uniquely small, quiet and fanless designs that were previously inconceivable," states Richard Brown, Director of International Marketing at VIA Technologies, Inc. "The positive feedback from motherboard and chassis designers and manufacturers demonstrates the growing momentum behind the Mini-ITX and VIA Eden Platform designs."

Biostar Group and Jetway Information Co., Ltd., will be producing their own versions of the Mini-ITX that will be available in early Q2 this year. The leading chassis manufacturers currently producing innovative, ergonomically designed cases for the Mini-ITX are Yeong Yang Technology Group Co., Ltd., Chenbro Group, Casetek, Morex Information Ent., Co., Ltd. and G-Alantic Enterprise Co., Ltd.

"A new generation of case designs is now possible due to the innovative VIA EPIA Mini-ITX mainboard," said Colin Chang, General Manager of G-Alantic Enterprise. "Our latest case designs are smaller, sleeker and visually appealing for any room in your home, school or office - the future shape of the PC is definitely here!"

"VIA leads the market once again with the fanless VIA Eden Embedded Systems Platform", commented Steven Lin, Product Manager at Morex Information Enterprise Co., Ltd. "Combined with the Mini-ITX, this innovative small form factor design, now sets the standard for the next generation of small, silent PC's."

"Cool sleek case designs are the wave of the future," said Hark Hsu, President of Casetek International Co., Ltd. "We now have a platform that provides us with the perfect foundation for creating the next generation of unobtrusive, quieter and sleeker PC designs."

Modern, Aesthetically Pleasing, Small Footprint Chassis: The Wave of the Future
The VIA EPIA Mini-ITX mainboard allows chassis manufacturers to break away from traditional white box PCs and explore more unobtrusive yet fully functional designs. Several new case styles for the Mini-ITX are now available and can be viewed on the VIA EPIA Mini-ITX section of VIA's VPSD web site. The web page also provides names, web site addresses and e-mail addresses for each manufacturer.