page_title: Peripheral Component Interconnect
section_title: Mini PCI
hierarchical_section_title: Peripheral Component Interconnect / Physical dimensions / Mini PCI
caption_attribution_description: English: MiniPCI and MiniPCI Express card in comparison
context_page_description: Peripheral Component Interconnect 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 that is independent of any particular processor's native bus. Devices connected to the PCI bus appear to a bus master to be connected directly to its own bus and are assigned addresses in the processor's address space. It is a parallel bus, synchronous to a single bus clock.
  Attached devices can take either the form of an integrated circuit fitted onto the motherboard itself or an expansion card that fits into a slot. The PCI Local Bus was first implemented in IBM PC compatibles, where it displaced the combination of several slow Industry Standard Architecture slots and one fast VESA Local Bus slot as the bus configuration. It has subsequently been adopted for other computer types. Typical PCI cards used in PCs include: network cards, sound cards, modems, extra ports such as USB or serial, TV tuner cards and disk controllers. PCI video cards replaced ISA and VESA cards until growing bandwidth requirements outgrew the capabilities of PCI.
context_section_description: Mini PCI was added to PCI version 2.2 for use in laptops; it uses a 32-bit, 33 MHz bus with powered connections (3.3 V only; 5 V is limited to 100 mA) and support for bus mastering and DMA.  The standard size for Mini PCI cards is approximately a quarter of their full-sized counterparts. There is no access to the card from outside the case, unlike desktop PCI cards with brackets carrying connectors.  This limits the kinds of functions a Mini PCI card can perform.
  Many Mini PCI devices were developed such as Wi-Fi, Fast Ethernet, Bluetooth, modems (often Winmodems), sound cards, cryptographic accelerators, SCSI, IDE–ATA, SATA controllers and combination cards. Mini PCI cards can be used with regular PCI-equipped hardware, using Mini PCI-to-PCI converters. Mini PCI has been superseded by the much narrower PCI Express Mini Card
caption: MiniPCI and MiniPCI Express cards in comparison
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