Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
• Industry-standard motherboard form factors such as ATX (including variations such
as microATX and FlexATX) and BTX (including variations such as microBTX, nan-
oBTX, and picoBTX). ATX is still the most popular, and beginning in 1996-1997 it
replaced the somewhat long-in-the-tooth IBM-designed Baby-AT form factor, which
had been used since the early 1980s.
• Desktop Management Interface (DMI) for monitoring system hardware functions.
• Dynamic Power Management Architecture (DPMA) and Advanced Power Manage-
ment (APM) standards for managing power use in the PC.
Intel dominates not only the PC, but the entire worldwide semiconductor industry. Ac-
cording to the sales figures compiled by iSuppli, Intel has nearly twice the sales revenue
of the next closest semiconductor company (Samsung) and more than six times that of
competitor AMD (see
Table 2.1
).
Table 2.1 Top 25 Semiconductor Companies Ranked by 2009 Semiconductor Sales
