Final answer:
A motherboard is a board with computer chips, including microchips or integrated circuits made of silicon, which facilitate the compact and efficient design of personal computers.
Step-by-step explanation:
A motherboard is a thin board containing computer chips and other electronic components. The heart of these electronic components is often the microchip or integrated circuit, which contains a large amount of electronic circuitry within a small chip, usually made of silicon.
These microchips use semiconductors to facilitate electrical conductivity and are essential in microelectronics. A microprocessor is a kind of integrated circuit and acts as the brain of a computer, while transistors are individual electrical components that can be combined on a microchip to perform various functions.
The progression from large, room-sized computers to smaller, more efficient personal computers was largely due to the invention of the integrated circuit. Microchips allow for faster computation, lower power consumption, and smaller physical sizes, which highly benefits computer designers and users.