Cardbus Pc Card

[Firman Lamarre]

PC Card is a parallel peripheral interface for laptop computers and PDAs.[1] The PCMCIA originally introduced the 16-bit ISA-based PCMCIA Card in 1990, but renamed it to PC Card in March 1995 to avoid confusion with the name of the organization.[2] The CardBus PC Card was introduced as a 32-bit version of the original PC Card, based on the PCI specification. The card slots are backward compatible for the original 16-bit card, older slots are not forward compatible with newer cards.

Although originally designed as a standard for memory-expansion cards for computer storage, the existence of a usable general standard for notebook peripherals led to the development of many kinds of devices including network cards, modems, and hard disks.

The PC Card port has been superseded by the ExpressCard interface since 2003, which was also initially developed by the PCMCIA. The organization dissolved in 2009, with its assets merged into the USB Implementers Forum.

Many notebooks in the 1990s had two adjacent type-II slots, which allowed installation of two type-II cards or one, double-thickness, type-III card. The cards were also used in early digital SLR cameras, such as the Kodak DCS 300 series. However, their original use as storage expansion is no longer common.

Mercedes-Benz used a PCMCIA card reader in the W221 S-Class for model years 2006-2009. It was used for reading media files such as MP3 audio files to play through the COMAND infotainment system. After 2009 it was replaced with a standard SD Card reader

Adapters for PC Cards to Personal Computer ISA slots were available when these technologies were current. Cardbus adapters for PCI slots have been made. These adapters were sometimes used to fit Wireless (802.11) PCMCIA cards into desktop computers with PCI slots.[5]

The PCMCIA 1.0 card standard was published by the Personal Computer Memory Card International Association in November 1990 and was soon adopted by more than eighty vendors.[7][8] It corresponds with the Japanese JEIDA memory card 4.0 standard.[8] It was originally developed to support Memory cards.[9]

SanDisk (operating at the time as "SunDisk") launched its PCMCIA card in October 1992. The company was the first to introduce a writeable Flash RAM card for the HP 95LX (an early MS-DOS pocket computer). These cards conformed to a supplemental PCMCIA-ATA standard that allowed them to appear as more conventional IDE hard drives to the 95LX or a PC. This had the advantage of raising the upper limit on capacity to the full 32 MB available under DOS 3.22 on the 95LX.[11]

New Media Corporation was one of the first companies established for the express purpose of manufacturing PC Cards; they became a major OEM for laptop manufacturers such as Toshiba and Compaq for PC Card products.[12]

It soon became clear that the PCMCIA card standard needed expansion to support "smart" I/O cards to address the emerging need for fax, modem, LAN, harddisk and floppy disk cards.[7] It also needed interrupt facilities and hot plugging, which required the definition of new BIOS and operating system interfaces.[7] This led to the introduction of release 2.0 of the PCMCIA standard and JEIDA 4.1 in September 1991,[7][8] which saw corrections and expansion with Card Services (CS) in the PCMCIA 2.1 standard in November 1992.[7][8]

To recognize increased scope beyond memory, and to aid in marketing, the association acquired the rights to the simpler term "PC Card" from IBM. This was the name of the standard from version 2 of the specification onwards. These cards were used for wireless networks, modems, and other functions in notebook PCs.

The original standard was defined for both 5 V and 3.3 volt cards, with 3.3 V cards having a key on the side to prevent them from being inserted fully into a 5 V-only slot. Some cards and some slots operate at both voltages as needed. The original standard was built around an 'enhanced' 16-bit ISA bus platform. A newer version of the PCMCIA standard is CardBus (see below), a 32-bit version of the original standard. In addition to supporting a wider bus of 32 bits (instead of the original 16), CardBus also supports bus mastering and operation speeds up to 33 MHz.

CardBus are PCMCIA 5.0 or later (JEIDA 4.2 or later) 32-bit PCMCIA devices, introduced in 1995 and present in laptops from late 1997 onward. CardBus is effectively a 32-bit, 33 MHz PCI bus in the PC Card design. CardBus supports bus mastering, which allows a controller on the bus to talk to other devices or memory without going through the CPU. Many chipsets, such as those that support Wi-Fi, are available for both PCI and CardBus.

The notch on the left hand front of the device is slightly shallower on a CardBus device so, by design, a 32-bit device cannot be plugged into earlier equipment supporting only 16-bit devices. Most new slots accept both CardBus and the original 16-bit PC Card devices. CardBus cards can be distinguished from older cards by the presence of a gold band with eight small studs on the top of the card next to the pin sockets.

CardBay is a variant added to the PCMCIA specification introduced in 2001. It was intended to add some forward compatibility with USB and IEEE 1394, but was not universally adopted and only some notebooks have PC Card controllers with CardBay features. This is an implementation of Microsoft and Intel's joint Drive Bay initiative.

The card information structure (CIS) is metadata stored on a PC card that contains information about the formatting and organization of the data on the card.[18] The CIS also contains information such as:

ExpressCard is a later specification from the PCMCIA, intended as a replacement for PC Card, built around the PCI Express and USB 2.0 standards. The PC Card standard is closed to further development and PCMCIA strongly encourages future product designs to utilize the ExpressCard interface. From about 2006, ExpressCard slots replaced PCMCIA slots in laptop computers, with a few laptops having both in the transition period.

ExpressCard and CardBus sockets are physically and electrically incompatible.[19] ExpressCard-to-CardBus and Cardbus-to-ExpressCard adapters are available that connect a Cardbus card to an Expresscard slot, or vice versa, and carry out the required electrical interfacing.[20] These adapters do not handle older non-Cardbus PCMCIA cards.

Despite being much faster in speed/bandwidth, ExpressCard was not as popular as PC Card, due in part to the ubiquity of USB ports on modern computers. Most functionality provided by PC Card or ExpressCard devices is now available as an external USB device. These USB devices have the advantage of being compatible with desktop computers as well as portable devices. (Desktop computers were rarely fitted with a PC Card or ExpressCard slot.) This reduced the requirement for internal expansion slots; by 2011, many laptops had none.

Some IBM ThinkPad laptops took their onboard RAM (in sizes ranging from 4 to 16 MB) in the factor of an IC-DRAM Card. While very similar in form-factor, these cards did not go into a standard PC Card Slot, often being installed under the keyboard, for example. They also were not pin-compatible, as they had 88 pins but in two staggered rows, as opposed to even rows like PC Cards.[21] These correspond to versions 1 and 2 of the JEIDA memory card standard.

The interface has spawned a generation of flash memory cards that set out to improve on the size and features of Type I cards: CompactFlash, MiniCard, P2 Card and SmartMedia. For example, the PC Card electrical specification is also used for CompactFlash, so a PC Card CompactFlash adapter can be a passive physical adapter rather than requiring additional circuitry. CompactFlash is a smaller dimensioned 50 pin subset of the 68 pin PC Card interface. It requires a setting for the interface mode of either "memory" or "ATA storage".[citation needed]

In the year 2001 RME started a revolution in mobile audio recording: the HDSP System, consisting of a CardBus card (or PCI card / PCI Express card) plus an external I/O-box has been the world's first audio system, operating at both desktop and laptop. And the world's first professional multitrack system for notebooks at all.

In the year 2005 we are proud to look back and conclude: the HDSP system has become a true 'industry standard'. Thanks to continuing firmware and driver updates it stayed a cutting-edge product, still offers un-beaten performance, and still enjoys great popularity among the users.

PCI and CardBus have not been surpassed by any other interface technology for professional audio - no other solution can keep up regarding low Latency and lowest CPU load. Also in regards of competition RME's HDSP system is still unsurpassed after 4 years. No other manufacturer offers such a flexible, robust, performing and expandable solution.

For the Hammerfall DSP I/O-boxes Digiface, Multiface and RPM, RME have developed a world-exclusive PCMCIA type II card in Zero wait state CardBus Busmaster technology. With up to 130 MB/s transfer rate in both directions the same basic performance is provided on a notebook as a PCI card would offer on a desktop computer. Additionally the card offers highest compatibility by being 100% Plug & Play compatible under Windows and Mac OS, and being able to share interrupts. The card itself will only use one interrupt (IRQ) for all functions (audio/MIDI.)

The connection between CardBus card and I/O-box is established using ordinary FireWire cable (6-pin IEEE 1394a). The data transfer does not use FireWire protocol, but a proprietary bus protocol by RME. The supplied cable has a length of 4 m (12 ft.). The CardBus card does not provide power to the attached I/O-box. Therefore a compact and light-weight hi-tech switch-mode power supply is included.

The CardBus shown above ships since mid 2005. In case two HDSP CardBus shall be used in one laptop, the lower card must be a flat version, which is also available. It uses a special cable (15-pin Closed LAN to 6-pin IEEE1394a, included), with a length of 4 meters (12 ft.). The flat card is 100% identical and compatible, but does not offer the Secure BIOS technology of the upper version.

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