Sunnyvale (CA) - AMD has released its proposed motherboard design guidelines for DTX small form factor (SFF) PCs. The company said that the specifications should enable "smaller, quieter, desktop-friendly" computer systems.

The "DTX mechanical interface specification" is based on the current ATX spec and outlines motherboard requirements on just ten pages. At this time, the document defines "a minimum set of parameters necessary for interoperability," AMD said. The company hopes that OEMs, ODMs, component vendors and other industry members will "contribute to the guidelines" in a framework that will "give vendors the freedom to innovate" and leverage "production efficiencies."

The main DTX and Mini-DTX requirements are limited to the motherboard size and key components. According to the guidelines a Mini-DTX board will be 6.7" x 8" (170.18 mm x 203.20 mm) in size, which is slightly smaller than current microATX boards, which measure 9.6" x 9.6" (244 mm x 244 mm). However, Mini-DTX boards will be too large to enable systems with the size of Apple's Mac Mini, which measures 6.5" x 6.5".

The regular DTX motherboard has a size of 9.6" x 8" (243.84 mm x 203.20 mm), which is also smaller than the requirement of the regular ATX spec (max 12" x 9.6" or 305 mm x 204 mm).

Other current DTX specifications define mounting hole locations, rear I/O dimensions and locations as well as PCI and PCI Express connector locations.