The main hardware part of any computer is the motherboard. All other part of computer hardware, from the keyboard, mouse, CPU and RAM to expansion cards, all attach into the motherboard. It is also known as main board, printed circuit board (PCS) or systems board. Without the primary circuit system of the motherboard, one would have no computer.

Basics
Motherboards contains with circuits that are multiple layers thick, and are, therefore, not easy to see. Each motherboard is as minimum two or more layers thick. The printed wires are called traces, and they carry and pass on the data and commands between the CPU, Northbridge, RAM and other hardware devices. The motherboard also wants to connect to the power supply in order to give the accurate power for the computer. Therefore, the motherboard and power supply must have matching connector slots.

Characteristics
There are 3 common linked characteristics that help to define modern motherboards. The first is form factor. Form factor is what assigns the definite physical size of the motherboard, with the place of the ports on it, airflow and other components. The second characteristic is the chipset, which defines the type of RAM and how much RAM the computer will support, with the processor that is necessary for the motherboard. The third characteristic contains the built-in components, which define the basic function capacity of the whole computer system.

Types
There are different kinds of motherboard. Everyone comes with its own features and components. There are a lot of motherboard manufacturers, and depending on your requirements, you also make the motherboard designed for you.

Chipsets
Chipsets on the motherboard decide the types of hardware, memory capability and other external devices that the computer can support without including expansion cards to the computer. Normally, new computers are made of two main chips, called the Northbridge and the Southbridge.

Additional Components
Other basic motherboard components contain USB/FireWire ports, onboard sound chips, RAID and audio, modem, and communications and networking riser slots.
Several motherboards are designed to give support for older technologies, like floppy drives, modems, infrared connections and parallel ports; up till now most modern chipsets on newer motherboards do not support older devices.