Strong signs of support for DTX

Chip vendor rallies round and gets support for open standards specification

AMD has announced a strong line-up of partners supporting DTX, its open-standard specification designed to make building small form-factor PCs easier and cheaper.

Companies including Founder, Albatron, Asus, nVidia, Shuttle, ECS, Gigabyte and Tongfang are planning to use DTX for creating small form-factor systems as cost-efficiently as making regular ATX-size desktop PCs.

“With the DTX open-standard specification, there is potential for the small form-factor market to reap benefits similar to that which the desktop market has gained from the ATX standard in recent years,” said Bob Brewer, corporate vice-president of AMD’s desktop division. “Leveraging commonalities within the PC ecosystem can also benefit customers and end-users who value the size advantage, power savings and quiet nature of energy-efficient systems.”

DTX allows up to four motherboards per standard printed circuit board manufacturing panel, while mini DTX allows for up to six to cut costs. DTX motherboards can be manufactured in as few as four layers of printed circuit board wiring, which should also help to reduce costs.

“DTX provides the opportunity for OEMs to supply market solutions by leveraging this mechanical interoperability standard,” said Maowei Xing, general manager of Tongfang’s computer systems business group.

André Eriksen, chief executive at Asetek, said: “Smaller form factors and lower acoustic noise emission are important elements in the future of desktop PCs. We see DTX as an excellent business opportunity.”