A motherboard (sometimes also known as the motherboard, motherboard, motherboard, flat plate or logic board, or colloquially, a mobo) is the main printed circuit board (PCB) found in general-purpose microcomputers and other expandable systems. It maintains 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 important subsystems, such as the central processor, chipset input / output and memory controllers, interface connectors and other integrated components for general use.
The motherboard specifically refers to a PCB with expand ability and, as the name implies, this board is often referred to as the "mother" of all connected components, which often include peripherals, interface cards and daughter cards: sound cards, video cards, network cards, hard drives or other forms of persistent storage; TV tuner cards, cards that provide additional USB or Fire Wire slots and a variety of other custom components.
Similarly the term main board applies to devices with a single board and without expansions or additional capabilities, such as control panels in laser printers, televisions, washing machines and other integrated systems with limited expansion capabilities.