A
motherboard (sometimes alternatively known as the
mainboard,
system board,
baseboard,
planar board or
logic board, or colloquially, a
mobo) is the main
printed circuit board (PCB) found in general purpose
microcomputers and other expandable systems. It holds and allows communication between many of the crucial electronic components of a system, such as the
central processing unit (CPU) and
memory, and provides connectors for other
peripherals. Unlike a
backplane, a motherboard usually contains significant sub-systems such as the central processor, the chipset's input/output and memory controllers, interface connectors, and other components integrated for general purpose use.