PCMCIA CardPCMCIA stands for personal computer memory card international association. PCMCIA is an organization that defines and authorizes memory card standards. PCMCIA cards are the memory cards based on the standards authorized by this organization. These cards are also known as PC cards as they were originally designed for portable computers to add more storage.

PCMCIA card Standards

The first standard for the PCMCIA card was PC card. PC card was especially designed to ad more memory to portable computers. It has a 68-pin interface and manages 16-bit of data. CardBUS cards defined the new standard for memory cards. It can handle 32-bit data running at 33 MHz. Next generation was mini-cards. These cards are based on multi-level cell technology with 60-pin connector. Compact Flash and Card Bay are one of the new standards of PCMCIA cards.

Express card

Express card is the latest standard in PC cards category. Express cards are hot pluggable and are less expensive than other PC card standards such as CardBus. The standard supports PCI express and USB 2.0 buses. It is available in two form factors. One is express card /34 with 34 mm width and other express card / 54 with 54 mm width.

PCMCIA Card Form Factors

PCMCIA cards are available in four form factors. These are categorized as type I cards, type II, type III, and type IV cards. Cards with 54 mm X 85.4 mm size and 3.3 mm thickness come under type I. Type I cards are also known as memory cards as they are mainly used for memory. Pc cards & compact flash come under this category. Type II cards have the same size but thicker than type I with 5.5 mm thickness. Disk on chips, LAN adapters, or data / fax modems are available as type II PCMCIA cards. Type III cards are the thickest with 10.5 mm thickness and the same size. Disk-on-module is its one example. Type IV cards are the latest and under development for larger storage.

PCMCIA Card Types

PCMCIA organization when started it only developed card standards for memory and storage. But now there are several card types are available based on PCMCIA standards. There are various PCMCIA cards are available including memory cards, hard drive cards, network cards, interface cards, modem / fax cards, modular devices, I/ O boards, GPS boards, smart cards, and data acquisition (DAQ) computer boards and modules.