An
edge connector is the portion of a
printed circuit boardA printed circuit board, or PCB, is used to mechanically support and electrically connect electronic components using conductive pathways, or traces, etched from copper sheets laminated onto a non-conductive substrate. It is also referred to as printed wiring board or etched wiring board...
consisting of traces leading to the edge of the board that are intended to plug into a matching
socketIn electronics and electrical assemblies, the term jack commonly refers to a surface-mounted connector, often with the female electrical contact or socket, and is the "more fixed" connector of a connector pair...
.
An
edge connector socket, often popularly referenced simply as a
slot, is any type of female
electrical connectorAn electrical connector is a conductive device for joining electrical circuits together. The connection may be temporary, as for portable equipment, or may require a tool for assembly and removal, or may be a permanent electrical joint between two wires or devices. There are hundreds of types of...
for use with printed circuit boards having matching edge connectors. They consist of a plastic "box" open on one side, with pins on one or both side(s) of the longer edges, sprung to push into the middle of the open center.
An
edge connector is the portion of a
printed circuit boardA printed circuit board, or PCB, is used to mechanically support and electrically connect electronic components using conductive pathways, or traces, etched from copper sheets laminated onto a non-conductive substrate. It is also referred to as printed wiring board or etched wiring board...
consisting of traces leading to the edge of the board that are intended to plug into a matching
socketIn electronics and electrical assemblies, the term jack commonly refers to a surface-mounted connector, often with the female electrical contact or socket, and is the "more fixed" connector of a connector pair...
.
An
edge connector socket, often popularly referenced simply as a
slot, is any type of female
electrical connectorAn electrical connector is a conductive device for joining electrical circuits together. The connection may be temporary, as for portable equipment, or may require a tool for assembly and removal, or may be a permanent electrical joint between two wires or devices. There are hundreds of types of...
for use with printed circuit boards having matching edge connectors. They consist of a plastic "box" open on one side, with pins on one or both side(s) of the longer edges, sprung to push into the middle of the open center. Connectors are often keyed to ensure the correct
polarityIn physics, polarity is a description of an attribute, typically a binary attribute , or a vector . For example:* An electric charge has a polarity of either positive or negative....
, and may contain bumps or notches both for polarity and to ensure that the wrong type of device is not inserted.
The opposite side of the socket is often an insulation-piercing connector which is clamped onto a
ribbon cableA ribbon cable is a cable with many conducting wires running parallel to each other on the same flat plane. As a result the cable is wide and flat...
. This can be seen inside a
personal computerA personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end user, with no intervening computer operator...
as the connection to a floppy drive. (5.25" floppy drives actually used an edge connector, while 3.5" drives use a pin connector instead, but both typically use the same insulation-piercing connector to the ribbon cable on the back of the connector.) The other side may also be
solderA solder is a fusible metal alloy with a melting point or melting range of 90 to 450 °C , used in a process called soldering where it is melted to join metallic surfaces. It is especially useful in electronics and plumbing...
ed to a
motherboardA motherboard is the central printed circuit board in many modern computers, and holds many of the crucial components of the system, while providing connectors for other peripherals. The motherboard is sometimes alternatively known as the main board, system board, or, on Apple computers, the logic...
or daughtercard. This is seen inside every PC for connecting
expansion cardAn expansion card in computing is a printed circuit board that can be inserted into an expansion slot of a computer motherboard to add additional functionality to a computer system....
s and
computer memoryComputer memory refers to devices that are used to store data or programs on a temporary or permanent basis for use in an electronic digital computer. Computers represent information in binary code, written as sequences of 0s and 1s...
to the system bus.
Slot 1Slot 1 refers to the physical and electrical specification for the connector used by some of Intel's microprocessors, including the Pentium Pro, Celeron, Pentium II and the Pentium III...
and
Slot ASlot A refers to the physical and electrical specification for a 242-lead single-edge-connector used by early versions of AMD's Athlon processor.The Slot A connector allows for a higher bus rate than Socket 7 or Super Socket 7...
were also commonly-used at one point, the
processorThe Central Processing Unit or processor is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, and is the primary element carrying out the computer's functions. This term has been in use in the computer industry at least since the early 1960s...
being mounted on a card with an edge connector, instead of directly to the motherboard as before and since.
The edge connector is a money-saving device because it only requires a single discrete female connector (the male connector is formed out of the edge of the PCB,) and they also tend to be fairly robust and
durableDurability is the ability to endure. It can refer to:*Durable goods, goods with a long usable life in economics.*Durability , one of the ACID properties....
. They are commonly used in computers for expansion slots for peripheral cards, such as
PCIConventional PCI is a computer bus for attaching hardware devices in a computer. These devices can take either the form of an integrated circuit fitted onto the motherboard itself, called a planar device in the PCI specification, or an expansion card that fits into a slot...
,
PCI ExpressPCI Express , officially abbreviated as PCIe , is a computer expansion card standard designed to replace the older PCI, PCI-X, and AGP standards...
, and AGP cards.