VIA AMOS-3001 mini-PC packs tiny EPIA-P820 1080p Pico-ITX board

VIA have announced a new Pico-ITX board, together with a Fanless IPC which uses it, and together they add up to the most powerful and most compact system in the industry.  The VIA AMOS-3001 is the first model to use the VIA EPIA-P820 Pico-ITX board, which measures 10 x 7.2 cm and squeezes in a 1.2GHz VIA Nano CPU, 2GB of memory and the all-in-one VIA VX855 Media System Processor, good for 1080p HD video.

While VIA are positioning the AMOS-3001 as an industrial PC, with broad temperature range resilience, we're thinking it would also make for a pretty impressive HTPC.  Thanks to the EPIA-P820 it can manage high-bitrate H.264, WMV, VC1 and MPEG 2/4 output, while connectivity includes HDMI, VGA, gigabit ethernet and two USB 2.0 ports via a dedicated I/O board.

Slotted into the AMOS-3001, meanwhile, and you also get COM ports together with two extra USB 2.0; the mini-PC measures just 15 x 4.6 x 10.8 cm.  No word on pricing right now, but both VIA products are currently sampling.

Press Release:

Most Powerful Pico-ITX Board Ever Packs the VIA Nano Processor, Powers VIA AMOS-3001, Industry's Most Compact & Fanless IPC

VIA EPIA-P820 Pico-ITX board leverages the high performance 64-bit VIA Nano processor platform for next generation multimedia-intensive applications

Taipei, Taiwan, January 5, 2010 – VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator of power efficient x86 processor platforms, today announced the VIA EPIA-P820, the first Pico-ITX form factor board to feature the high performance, 64-bit VIA Nano processor, bringing industry-leading digital multimedia performance and virtualization capabilities to the smallest of spaces with the VIA AMOS-3001 chassis system.

The choice of VIA Nano processor means that the VIA EPIA-P820 offers a range of advantages over competitor offerings, including full 64-bit software support, a high-performance superscalar architecture and full support of the latest virtualization technologies for next generation server and virtual machine applications. Paired with the VIA VX855 media system processor, the VIA EPIA-P820 is well equipped to handle smooth playback of the most demanding codecs at resolutions up to 1080p.

The VIA AMOS-3001 is an entirely fanless and thoroughly robust chassis system that is specially designed to work with the VIA EPIA-P820. Leveraging the digital prowess of the VIA EPIA-P820, the VIA AMOS-3001 offers a powerful, rugged and HD-ready industrial-class PC that combines all the benefits of high performance 64-bit computing and ruthless hardware acceleration of HD media across the latest display connectivity standards including native HDMI support.

"Never before have developers had the opportunity to harness full 64-bit, superscalar processing in spaces as small as the palm of your hand," said Daniel Wu, Vice President, VIA Embedded Platform Division, VIA Technologies, Inc. "The VIA EPIA-P820 combines with the VIA AMOS-3001 to create a complete embedded system that takes the latest features and digital media standards to the very smallest of places."

The VIA EPIA-P820: Small yet Powerful

Measuring a mere 10cm x 7.2cm the ultra compact VIA EPIA-P820 supports 2GB of DDR2 system memory and leverages a power-efficient, high performance 1.2GHz U2500 VIA Nano processor to provide system developers with the most powerful Pico-ITX platform ever.

The VIA EPIA-P820 features the highly integrated, all-in-one VIA VX855 Media System Processor, specially designed to provide flawless hardware acceleration for the latest HD video codecs including H.264, WMV, VC1 and MPEG 2/4 at high bitrates and display resolutions of up to 1080p with very low CPU utilization. The VIA Chrome9™ HCM 3D integrated graphics core boasts full DirectX 9.0 support and a 128-bit 2D engine with hardware rotation capability.

The VIA EPIA-P820 uses a specially designed I/O add-on-board which supplements the native HDMI port to add a VGA port, a Gigabit LAN port and two USB 2.0 ports. The VIA Vinyl HD audio codec provides 6 channel, DTS capable audio with S/PDIF support. Storage is provided in the shape of an onboard 44-pin IDE connector and one S-ATA port. On board pin headers provide support for an additional 4 x USB 2.0 ports, an LPC connector, SMBus connector, PS/2 support, audio jacks, LVDS, 4 pairs of DIO and two UART ports.

For more details about the VIA EPIA-P820 please visit:

www.via.com.tw/en/products/embedded/ProductDetail.jsp?productLine=1&id=1050&tabs=1

VIA AMOS-3001: Strong, Silent and Powerful

The VIA AMOS-3001 is specially designed to support the VIA EPIA-P820 Pico-ITX board. Native HDMI is supported as well as an additional VGA port and USB ports through a daughter board. The VIA AMOS-3001 has a certified operating temperature of -20 to 70 degrees C, vibration tolerance of up to 7Grms and a shock tolerance of up to 70G. With dimensions of only 15.0 cm x 4.6cm x 10.8 cm, the VIA AMOS-3001 is approximately 20% more compact than the VIA AMOS-3000. The VIA AMOS-3001 is also available with the VIA EPIA-P720 featuring the fanless 1GHz VIA Eden ULV processor.

Storage is provided through a 44-pin IDE interface for Disk on Module Flash drive – an optional storage sub-system expansion chassis offers support for a standard 2.5" S-ATA drive. An onboard RJ45 connector provides Gigabit networking while the VIA VT1708B brings HD audio. Additional features include 4 USB 2.0 ports, on board GPIO port, COM port and programmable Watchdog Timer. System LED indicators are provided for power and HDD activity.

For more details about the VIA AMOS-3001 please visit:

www.via.com.tw/en/products/embedded/ProductDetail.jsp?productLine=2&id=1051&tabs=1

Samples of both the VIA EPIA-P820 Pico-ITX board and the VIA AMOS-3001 are available now to project developers upon request.