SINGAPORE, Jan. 10, 2007 -- AMD announced development of DTX, an
open standard specification designed by AMD to enable the broad
adoption of small form factor PCs. The DTX standard will be
designed to empower OEMs, ODMs, and component vendors to deliver
innovative solutions to market that are smaller, quieter, and
desktop-friendly, while leveraging commonalities within the
ecosystem that benefit both customers and end-users. The DTX
standard will take advantage of the existing ATX infrastructure and
benefits, including cost efficiency, system options and
backward-compatibility, to allow for ground-breaking PC design. A
review copy of the DTX specifications is planned to be made
available by AMD in Q1 2007.
As a customer-centric company, AMD is constantly evaluating
platforms and working with its ecosystem partners to bring
innovation to the market in a way that minimizes disruption, said
Bob Brewer, corporate vice president, Desktop Division, AMD. To
help meet this need, AMD is taking the initiative to define an open
standard for small form factor designs. The DTX specification will
be designed to allow the broad ecosystem to develop small form
factor solutions and deliver new, innovative and cost-effective
systems to both businesses and consumers.
The DTX standard will be designed to embrace energy-efficient
processors from AMD or other hardware vendors, and allow an
optimally designed small form factor system to consume less power
and generate less noise. When processor power consumption is
reduced, system size and cooling costs can also go down. Energy
efficient processors can also help extend the longevity of PCs,
while offering consumer and business users a quiet, more pleasant
experience in their offices or living rooms.
OEMs will also be able to enjoy the inherent cost benefits of
standardization. With the DTX open standard specification, the
potential exists for the small form factor market to reap the
similar benefits to what the ATX standard has done for the desktop
market in recent years.
DTX will be designed to provide improved motherboard layout
standardization, while being sensitive to the needs of OEMs, ODMs,
and component vendors. As the desktop market moves to lower thermal
design power (TDP) processors and works to lower costs, an eye to
balancing interchangeability of components with small form factor
products becomes critical. In addition, DTX chassis vendors can
help mitigate the financial risk associated with proprietary small
form factor designs by offering DTX-standard products to the
channel, in either component form or as bare-bones systems. The
general DTX specification will only define a minimum set of
parameters necessary for interoperability, freeing vendors to
innovate.
DTX, which will allow up to four motherboards for low cost per
standard printed circuit board manufacturing panel sizes; and
Mini-DTX, which will allow up to six motherboards for low cost
per standard printed circuit board manufacturing panel sizes;
DTX motherboards can be manufactured in as few as four-layers of
printed circuit board wiring for motherboard cost savings.
By leveraging backward-compatibility with ATX infrastructure,
vendors may gain a low-cost DTX product offering with little
development expense.
ASUS is pleased to work with AMD again to bring more innovation on
desktop solutions, leveraging production efficiencies that will be
available with the open DTX standard, said Joe Hsieh, vice
president of ASUS MB Business Unit. Together with ASUS excellent
design and manufacturing ability, end users will enjoy a sleek and
cool desktop computing experience using our motherboards.
We applaud AMDs commitment to open standards in developing
specifications that enable powerful system options and is
backward-compatible with the existing ATX infrastructure, said
Norman Tsai, EPS sales vice president, MSI. MSI is dedicated to
enabling customers to deliver innovative systems with minimal
requirements or disruptions.
The market pull for small form factors PCs is of particular
interest in the small and medium business (SMB) and consumer
markets that value the size advantage, power savings, and quiet
nature of energy-efficient systems.
The evolution of desktop systems into smaller form factors with
lower thermal design power is a major step forward for the PC
industry as a whole, said Bob ODonnell, program vice president,
Clients and Displays, IDC. OEMs and ODMs will be able to design
new PCs that take up less space and are more aesthetically pleasing
through the use of motherboard specifications promoting energy
efficiency and smaller form factor designs. This will translate to
better differentiated and more competitive solutions for their
customers.