Expansion card

In computing, an expansion card (also called an expansion board, adapter card, peripheral card or accessory card) is a printed circuit board that can be inserted into an electrical connector, or expansion slot (also referred to as a bus slot) on a computer's motherboard (see also backplane) to add functionality to a computer system. Sometimes the design of the computer's case and motherboard involves placing most (or all) of these slots onto a separate, removable card. Typically such cards are referred to as a riser card in part because they project upward from the board and allow expansion cards to be placed above and parallel to the motherboard. Expansion cards allow the capabilities and interfaces of a computer system to be extended or supplemented in a way appropriate to the tasks it will perform. For example, a high-speed multi-channel data acquisition system would be of no use in a personal computer used for bookkeeping, but might be a key part of a system used for industrial process control. Expansion cards can often be installed or removed in the field, allowing a degree of user customization for particular purposes. Some expansion cards take the form of "daughterboards" that plug into connectors on a supporting system board. In personal computing, notable expansion buses and expansion card standards include the S-100 bus from 1974 associated with the CP/M operating system, the 50-pin expansion slots of the original Apple II computer from 1977 (unique to Apple), IBM's Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) introduced with the IBM PC in 1981, Acorn's tube expansion bus on the BBC Micro also from 1981, IBM's patented and proprietary Micro Channel architecture (MCA) from 1987 that never won favour in the clone market, the vastly improved Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) that displaced ISA in 1992, and PCI Express from 2003 which abstracts the interconnect into high-speed communication "lanes" and relegates all other functions into software protocol.

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Related publications (1)

Related concepts (88)

Related courses (2)

Related lectures (23)

PHYS-739: Conformal Field theory and Gravity

This course is an introduction to the non-perturbative bootstrap approach to Conformal Field Theory and to the Gauge/Gravity duality, emphasizing the fruitful interplay between these two ideas.

EE-583: Spacecraft avionics architectures

The course presents and analyses the different systems, architectures and components of spacecraft avionics (on board data handling and processing systems) controlling and commanding spacecraft and pa

Personal computer

A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or technician. Unlike large, costly minicomputers and mainframes, time-sharing by many people at the same time is not used with personal computers. Primarily in the late 1970s and 1980s, the term home computer was also used.

Expansion card

Industry Standard Architecture

Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) is the 16-bit internal bus of IBM PC/AT and similar computers based on the Intel 80286 and its immediate successors during the 1980s. The bus was (largely) backward compatible with the 8-bit bus of the 8088-based IBM PC, including the IBM PC/XT as well as IBM PC compatibles. Originally referred to as the PC bus (8-bit) or AT bus (16-bit), it was also termed I/O Channel by IBM.

Extension board for CycloneV : Multi microphone acquisition - Signal Analysis (Extending the Pyramic Array)

Corentin Ferry

The Pyramic architecture is a flexible 48-microphone array mounted on a powerful FPGA-SoC system. It allows to do massively multi-channel audio processing in real-time. This project implements an extension to the original system. In the original system, audio output is not allowed from the hardware processor system of the SoC, thus we cannot perform simultaneous capture and output. We implemented this through the design of an audio output controller, as well as a library (libpyramicio) that drives the capture and output from the software part and makes it easy for application developers to create algorithms that run on the Pyramic array.

2017

Explores the Large N expansion in vector models, focusing on matrix models, gauge theories, and the Hooft coupling.

Covers spacecraft avionics systems, architectures, and processors, focusing on on-board computers and microprocessors.

Explores MAC protocols, CDMA, ALOHA efficiency, and CSMA/CA in mobile networks.