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Anedge connector is the portion of aprinted circuit board (PCB) consisting oftraces leading to the edge of the board that are intended to plug into a matchingsocket. The edge connector is a money-saving device because it only requires a single discretefemale connector (the male connector is formed out of the edge of the PCB), and they also tend to be fairly robust and durable. They are commonly used in computers forexpansion slots for peripheral cards, such asPCI,PCI Express, andAGP cards.
Edge connector sockets consist of a plastic "box" open on one side, with pins on one or both sides of the longer edges, sprung to push into the middle of the open center. Connectors are oftenkeyed to ensure the correctpolarity, and may contain bumps or notches both for polarity and to ensure that the wrong type of device is not inserted. The socket's width is chosen to fit to the thickness of the connecting PCB.
The opposite side of the socket is often aninsulation-piercing connector which is clamped onto aribbon cable. Alternatively, the other side may besoldered to amotherboard ordaughtercard.
Edge connectors are commonly used inpersonal computers for connectingexpansion cards andcomputer memory to thesystem bus. Example expansion peripheral technologies which use edge connectors includePCI,PCI Express, andAGP.Slot 1 andSlot A also used edge connectors; theprocessor being mounted on a card with an edge connector, instead of directly to the motherboard as before and since.
IBM PCs used edge connector sockets attached to ribbon cables to connect 5.25"floppy disk drives. 3.5" drives use a pin connector instead.
Video game cartridges typically take the form of a PCB with an edge connector: the socket is located within the console itself. TheNintendo Entertainment System was unusual in that it was designed to use azero insertion force edge connector:[1] instead of the user forcing the cartridge into the socket directly, the cartridge was first placed in a bay and then mechanically lowered into position.
Starting with theAmiga 1000 in 1985, various Amiga models used the 86-pin Zorro I edge connector, which was later reshaped into the internal 100-pinZorro II slot on theAmiga 2000 and later upmarket models.