About motherboard building

[ktalap]

Hi, y'all. That's a question to people who have built a motherboard for ARM, RISC5 or x86 architectures before. Where do I start, besides me being an ECE major, and what should I focus on? The computer architecture books, while relevant don't seem to hit in the bull's eye.

[tggzzz]

Make sure you understand "signal integrity" and "power distribution network" theory and practice.

Those topics are too large, complex, and subtle to explain in a forum thread. There are many books and articles on the subject. Consider starting with Bogotin's Rules of Thumb on EDN.

[ktalap]

THANK YOU!

[Andree Henkel]

I´d advice to select a "daughterboard" which come in several formfactors, and contain the CPU, RAM, Flash
this components are today mostly BGA, very fine pitch, Multi layer boards >=6 Layers, a lot of nets that need length matching, diff pairs and maybe controlled impedance

and design not a "Mother"-board, but a "Carrier"-Board containing Power and Connectors / Peripherie to outside which can be 4..6 Layers and Compnents with pitch that can be still handled maanually if you got steady hands.