Removable mother/daughter peripheral card

• US 6,266,724 B1
• Filed: 02/01/1999
• Issued: 07/24/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 09/01/1993
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: SanDisk Technologies LLC (Western Digital Corporation)
• Original Assignee: SanDisk Corporation (Western Digital Corporation)
• Inventors: Harari, Eliyahou, Guterman, Daniel C., Wallace, Robert F.
• Primary Examiner(s): Follansbee, John A.
• Application Number:
  US09/241,222
• Time in Patent Office: 904 Days
• Field of Search: 711/103, 711/115, 710/101, 710/102, 710/13, 710/62, 439/296, 365/52, 365/94
• US Class Current: 710/301
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/4068 Electrical coupling
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 19/07741 comprising a first part operating as a regular record carrier and a second attachable part that changes the functional appearance of said record carrier, e.g. a contact-based smart card with an adapter part which, when attached to the contact card makes the contact card function as a non-contact card
• CPC Class Codes: H05K 5/0265 of PCMCIA type
• CPC Class Codes: H05K 5/0282 Adapters for connecting cards having a first standard in receptacles having a second standard

Abstract

A peripheral card having a Personal Computer (“PC”) card form factor and removably coupled externally to a host system is further partitioned into a mother card portion and a daughter card portion. The daughter card is removably coupled to the mother card. In the preferred embodiment, a low cost flash “floppy” is accomplished with the daughter card containing only flash EEPROM chips and being controlled by a memory controller residing on the mother card. Other aspects of the invention includes a comprehensive controller on the mother card able to control a predefined set of peripherals on daughter cards connectable to the mother card; relocation of some host resident hardware to the mother card to allow for a minimal host system; a mother card that can accommodate multiple daughter cards; daughter cards that also operates directly with hosts having embedded controllers; daughter cards carrying encoded data and information for decoding it; and daughter cards with security features.

Claims

1. A peripheral card assembly, comprising:

a first rectangularly shaped card having first and second opposing ends, a first electrical connector extending across an outside edge of said first end and adapted to be received by a mating connector of host equipment through a PCMCIA interface, and a slot extending into the second end thereof a distance toward said first end to terminate in a second electrical connector extending across the first card within the slot,

a second rectangularly shaped card including a third electrical connector extending across one end thereof and adapted to mate with said second connector,

said second card and the slot of the first card being cooperatively shaped so that the second card stays within outside boundaries of the first card when the second card is positioned within the slot and the second and third electrical connectors are engaged, and

a flash EEPROM enclosed within the second card and connected with the third connector in a manner to provide non-volatile memory to the host equipment when the second card is positioned within the slot and the first connector of the first card is connected with the mating connector of the host equipment.

2. The card assembly according to claim 1, wherein a controller for the flash EEPROM is contained in the first card between said first and second connectors.

3. The card assembly according to claim 2, wherein the assembly includes a plurality of said second cards, and wherein the controller has functions including copying data between at least two of the second cards.

4. The card assembly according to claim 1, which additionally comprises elements of mechanical ejector cooperatively carried by said first and second cards to allow the first and second cards to be selectively detached from each another.

5. The card assembly according to claim 4, wherein said mechanical ejector is spring loaded.

6. The card assembly according to claim 1, which additionally comprises elements of an electromechanical latch cooperatively carried by said first and second cards to selectively secure them together.

7. The card assembly according to any one of claims 1-6, wherein the outside boundaries of the first card have overall dimensions not exceeding 5.5 cm in width and 9 cm in length.

8. The card assembly according to any one of claims 1-6, wherein said flash EEPROM includes an array of non-volatile memory cells that are individually programmable into more than two states in order to store more than one bit of data per cell.