Inside PC Card: CardBus and PCMCIA Design

PCMCIA overview; PC Card: The 16-Bit Bus; CardBus: The 32-bit bus; Interface and configuration issues; Multi-function cards; PCMCIA software: An overview; PC card mechanical issues; Designing PCMCIA hosts; Designing PCMCIA cards.

PC Card (or PCMCIA) technology allows computers to interface with each other using less space than conventional interfaces. Currently, most applications are in the personal computing market, to enhance peripheral capabilities. As the industry changes, the applications will grow outside of the PC arena, into areas such as medical instrumentation and digital cameras, where peripheral expansion was previously unavailable.

One of the advantages of this book over others is that it does more than repeat standards or list suppliers. It actually describes and demonstrates design examples which can be applied to projects. This makes it a useful guide design engineers who want to take advantage of the PC Card technology in their work.

Faisal Haque is Design Engineering Manager at Baynetworks in Santa Clara, California and has been involved in PCMCIA design for the past four years. He is currently the chair of the PC Card ATA Working Group and has contributed to the 1995 PC Card Standard.

A designer's guide to PC Card (PCMCIA). Design and software implementation examples. Coverage includes Release 2.1 as well as PC Card'95.

PC Card users; Computer engineers