Backplane Connectors - Reliable for Connecting Several Printed Circuit Boards

Backplane or backplane system is a group of electrical connectors in parallel with each other, so that each pin of each connector is linked to the same relative pin of all the other connectors forming a computer bus. It is used as a backbone to connect several printed circuit boards together to make up a complete computer system. Backplane commonly use a printed circuit board but wire wrapped backplanes have also been used in minicomputers and high reliability applications. A backplane is generally differentiated from a motherboard by the lack of on-board processing and storage elements. A backplane uses plug-in cards for storage and processing. Backplanes are normally used in preference to cables because of their greater reliability. In a cabled system, the cables need to be flexed every time that a card is added or removed from the system; this flexing eventually causes mechanical failures.

A backplane does not suffer from this problem, so its service life is limited only by the longevity of its connectors. To transmit information, Serial Back-Plane technology uses a low voltage differential signaling transmission method for sending information, there are bus expansion cables which will extend a computer bus to an external backplane, usually located in an enclosure, to provide more or different slots than the host computer provides. These cable sets have a transmitter board located in the computer, an expansion board in the remote backplane, and a cable between the two. Backplanes have grown in complexity from the simple Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) (used in the original IBM PC) style where all the connectors were connected to a common bus. Due to limitations inherent in the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) specification for driving slots, backplanes are now offered as passive and active. True passive backplanes offer no active bus driving circuitry. Any desired arbitration logic is placed on the daughter cards. Active backplanes include chips which buffer the various signals to the slots. ASAP Semiconductor - The best known distributor of backplane connectors: ASAP Semiconductor is a leading distributor of all types of connectors, heat sinks, cable applications, and various components used in aerospace industry. Through our proprietary website JustConnectors.com, explore look into various electrical connectors types and connector components used in aviation industry. Please contact us today at sales@just-connectors.com if you have a demand for any of these connector parts or call us toll free at (714) 705 4780 and one of our knowledgeable sales person will assist you.

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1. nicholas smith
2. Posted on April 1, 2014
connector components

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