printed circuit board Last modified: Wednesday, November 12, 2003
Sometimes abbreviated PCB, a thin plate on which chips and other electronic components are placed. Computers consist of one or more boards, often called cards or adapters. Circuit boards fall into the following categories: motherboard : The principal board that has connectors for attaching devices to the bus. Typically, the mother board contains the CPU, memory, and basic controllers for the system. On PCs, the motherboard is often called the system board or mainboard. expansion board : Any board that plugs into one of the computer's expansion slots. Expansion boards include controller boards, LAN cards, and video adapters. Daughtercard : Any board that attaches directly to another board. controller board: A special type of expansion board that contains a controller for a peripheral device. When you attach new devices, such as a disk drive or graphics monitor, to a computer, you often need to add a controller board. Network Interface Card (NIC) : An expansion board that enables a PC to be connected to a local-area network (LAN). video adapter: An expansion board that contains a controller for a graphics monitor. Printed circuit boards are also called cards.
•E-mail this definition to a colleague• Sponsored listings Printed Circuit Board Accessories - #1 in Quickturn PCBs, $500 off 1st order, protos on time or Free. Lead-Free solder available protos and production. Industry's Best on time shipment Flexible Circuits - Offers flexible PCB fabrication with extensive experience in manufacturing high technology flex and rigid flex high designs. Flexible Circuit Boards - FlexCTech, with domestic and overseas capabilities, designs and provides flex and rigid-flex circuits in prototype to production quantities. For internet.com pages about printed circuit board . Also check out the following links! PCB Design Conference Information Provides details on upcoming PCB Design conferences. Printed circuit board fabricators home page The Printed Circuit Board Fabricators home page, sponsored by RD Chemical, offers advice and insights on the process for producing a printed circuit board. Each fabrication process is described in great detail. In addition, this site offers a question and answer section, as well as links to related Web sites. Sponsored listings Chemcut Corporation - Manufactures metal finishing equipment including chemical etching machines for PCB manufacturers. Also offers polishing, cleaning & plating products. Printed Circuit Board Repair - Designs and develops LED lamps, panel lights, and board-level indicators to provide primary status indication and backlighting of switches. PCB Assembly Services - PCB assembly services for electronic components. SMT and PTH, BGA, micro BGA and fine pitch. Shop now! GlobalSpec.com: PCB Testing - Provides database of suppliers for pcb testing. Includes catalogs, technical information, and supplier contact information. Flexible Circuit Design - Specializes in flexible circuit applications with critical delivery schedules. Complete in-house design capabilities and manufacturing services.	Hardware Motherboards backplane chip CNR controller daughtercard expansion board expansion slot fab fabless FC-PGA form factor local-area network motherboard PGA server blade silicon video adapter Give Us Your Feedback Shopping printed circuit board Products Compare Products,Prices and Stores Shop by Category: Printer Accessories 7 Model Matches Health Aids 51 Store Offers Books 12 Model Matches