A CPU card is a

printed circuit board A printed circuit board (PCB; also printed wiring board or PWB) is a medium used in Electrical engineering, electrical and electronic engineering to connect electronic components to one another in a controlled manner. It takes the form of a L ...

(PCB) that contains the

central processing unit A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, an ...

(CPU) of a computer. CPU cards are specified by CPU clock frequency and bus type as well as other features and applications built into the card. CPU cards include

peripheral component interconnect Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) is a local computer bus for attaching hardware devices in a computer and is part of the PCI Local Bus standard. The PCI bus supports the functions found on a processor bus but in a standardized format th ...

(PCI) cards, modular

PC Card In computing, PC Card is a configuration for computer parallel communication peripheral interface, designed for laptop computers. Originally introduced as PCMCIA, the PC Card standard as well as its successors like CardBus were defined and devel ...

Industry Standard Architecture Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) is the 16-bit internal bus of IBM PC/AT and similar computers based on the Intel 80286 and its immediate successors during the 1980s. The bus was (largely) backward compatible with the 8-bit bus of the 8 ...

(ISA) cards, PCI extensions for instrumentation (

PXI PCI eXtensions for Instrumentation (PXI) is one of several modular electronic instrumentation platforms in current use. These platforms are used as a basis for building electronic test equipment, automation systems, and modular laboratory instru ...

) cards and embedded technology extended (ETX) cards. CPU cards are often used to expand the memory, speed, bandwidth or embedded applications of an existing computer system. PC cards are typically used to expand a system's embedded applications. PC cards include modules for audio and video applications, data communications and embedded storage. PXI cards are used for data acquisition and control systems, making them suitable for real-time measurement applications. ETX cards are used in industrial applications to augment a computer system's embedded applications. ETX cards contain all the functionality necessary to run the PC in a compact space. CPU cards that are used to augment existing computer backplanes typically have ISA or PCI connectors and can be plugged into the

backplane A 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 backbo ...

without any additional configuration. CPU cards for use in computer backplanes are typically half-sized. The CPU card contains the PC functionality and communicates with the other cards plugged into the backplane through a computer bus. CPU cards may also be called expansion cards or expansion boards, and offer a variety of embedded applications from modems and wireless networking to graphics and video controllers to

RAID Raid, RAID or Raids may refer to: Attack * Raid (military), a sudden attack behind the enemy's lines without the intention of holding ground * Corporate raid, a type of hostile takeover in business * Panty raid, a prankish raid by male college ...

controllers.

External links

What Is a CPU Card? - wiseGEEK

CPU Cards and Modules Information - Engineering360
Central processing unit Compatibility cards {{Compu-hardware-stub