Map of Europe
A Eurocard is a printed circuit board for electronic components which, usually together with other such cards, are inserted into a subrack , a computer system or another complex electronic circuit. The format originated in Europe in the 1970s and has established itself as the standard in electrical engineering.
Dimensions
.jpg)
The size is specified in DIN 41494 or IEC 60297. The most common size is 100 mm × 160 mm, but variations are allowed:
- Depth: There is a graduation of 60 mm for the graduation of the depth, starting with a board depth of 100 mm. This results in lengths of 100, 160 and 220 mm. Euro cards with a length of 160 mm are usually used.
- Height: The basic height is 100 mm, then one speaks of a Eurocard suitable for subracks of 3 U. For higher cards, the division is specified in height units (1 HE = 44.45 mm) or units (U = HE). The other possible heights of the circuit board then result from: Basic height + n × U. With an additional 3 U (3 U = 133.35 mm) you get a double euro card with a height of 233.35 mm, suitable for 6 U.
- Thickness: The standard dimension for the thickness of the printed circuit boards is 1.6 mm. A specification can be found in the standard DIN IEC 249. The permissible deviation in thickness depends on the type of base material and is also specified in the standard.
Plug connections
The plug connection to the outside was not specified, as a result there were many different variants. For the cards for bus systems, VG strips (see DIN 41612 ) with 32, 64 or 96 contacts prevail. One of the standards is called Europe Card Bus (ECB). Other plug connections with, for example, 10 or 24 contact pins were also used in smaller systems.
Bus systems
- The NuBus used the European map format.
- The VME bus uses a double European card format, with the aforementioned VG strips as connectors. It is designed in such a way that a simple euro card can be connected to one half of the connector.