Chipmaker VIA Technologies has announced a single chip which can replace the majority of the key components on a PC mainboard.

The chip will go into mass production later this year, and is expected to appear in products next year, sources said today.

VIA chief executive Chen Wenchi showed a palm-sized computer mainboard built around the chip, codenamed 'John', during a presentation at the Computex trade show in Taipei.

Taiwan-based VIA is targeting the new chip, and similar existing products, at mobile devices, thin client PCs, and other devices in which space, weight or power consumption are at a premium.

The 'system on a chip' is made by packaging two separate chips so they occupy the space of one, company sources told vnunet.com.

The component chips are VIA's 2GHz C7-M low voltage CPU and VX700 chipset. The VX700 is an earlier creation which combines two large chips into one, and includes entry-level 3D graphics support.

Some earlier products which combined CPU, graphics and other support functions in a single chip have rapidly fallen behind as users have demanded more powerful computing devices.