PCMCIA Cards and Accessories

PCMCIA cards and accessories follow standards developed by the Personal Computer Memory Card International Association (PCMCIA), an international standards body and trade organization. PCMCIA cards, or PC cards as they are commonly known, were designed originally for adding memory to portable computers, but are now used in a variety of devices. PCMCIA cards and accessories follow several technology standards. The original standard, PC Card 95, handles 16 bits of data and has a 68-pin interface. CardBus cards handle 32 bits of data and run at 33 MHz. Miniature PCMCIA cards are about one-fourth the size of a standard PC card and have dimensions of 38 mm x 33 mm x 3.5 mm. These mini-cards use multi-level cell technology, ball grid array (BGA) packaging, and a 60-pin connector. CompactFlash^® cards have 50 pins and can fit passive 68-pin adapter cards that meet PCMCIA electrical and mechanical interface specifications. CF^® cards provide additional functionality and use Flash technology, a form of non-volatile memory that does need a constant power supply in order to retain data. Both CompactFlash and CF are registered trademarks of SanDisk Corporation. Other technologies for PCMCIA cards include CardBay^® , a 32-bit standard that uses universal serial bus (USB) technology. CardBay is a registered trademark of PCMCIA.