Eurocard (printed circuit board)

A map of Europe is a circuit board with electronic components, which usually arise together with other such adapters are installed in a rack, a computer system or other complex electronic circuit. The format was developed in the 1970s in Europe and it has established itself as the standard in electrical engineering.

The size is specified in DIN 41494 or IEC 60297. The most common size is 100 mm × 160 mm, but there are variations allowed:

• Depth: exists for the gradation of the depth of a pitch of 60 mm, starting with a printed circuit board depth of 100 mm. From this result lengths of 100, 160 and 220 mm. Usually Europe cards are used with a length of 160 mm.
• Height: The basic height is 100 mm, then one speaks of a map of Europe suitable for rack of 3U. For higher cards, the pitch is in height units ( 1 U = 44.45 mm) or units (U = U) fixed. The other possible heights of the board then result from: Basic level n × U. For additional 3 U ( 3 U = 133.35 mm ), one obtains a double European card with the height 233.35 mm, suitable for 6U.
• Thickness: The standard measure of the thickness of the PCB is 1.6 mm. A definition is given in the DIN IEC 249 The permissible deviation of thickness is determined depending on the type of base material and also in the standard.

Connectors

The plug-in connection to the outside was not determined There was consequently a great many different variants. When the cards for bus systems to VG ledges prevailed (see for DIN 41612 ) with 32, 64 or 96 contacts. One of the standards is Europe Card Bus (ECB). For smaller systems, other connectors were used with, for example, 10 or 24 pins.

Bus systems

• The NuBus related the Euro format.
• The VME bus uses a double Eurocard format, with the aforementioned VG ledges than connectors. It is designed so that you can connect a simple map of Europe on the one half of the connector.

• Circuit board