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This is a listing of COTS [Commercial-Off-The-Self] PISA Card manufacturers.
Or companies were listed before the PISA interface went End-of-Life.
What remains is a brief description of the PISA board standard, with links to the relevant interfaces.
PISA Bus was developed by Giantec Inc. January 1996.
The PISA standard I have is from Jumptec, Revision 1.8, December 1997; although Kontron re-released version 1.8.
Giantec merged with JUMP in 1996 to form Jumptec, then JUMPtec merged with Kontron in 2002.
So as of 2002 Kontron controls the PISA specification.
PISA is a combination ISA [98 pins], and PCI bus [90 pins] in a short card form factor.
PISA: PCI + ISA in a short ISA form factor card, as in a PC-AT card.
In PISA's case the ISA and PCI fingers are on top of each other, but offset [see the graphic below].
You need a back plane designed to accept PISA cards, which incorporates the correct connectors, to use the PISA board.
The PISA bus is used as an Industrial Embedded Computer Bus or expansion board, not a consumer Personal Computer bus.
The PISA board size is 155mm x 125mm [half size SBC]
PISA BUS Revision 1.8, 1997
PISA express: PCI + PCI EXpress in an short ISA form factor.
PICMG 1.0: PCI and ISA buses placed one after the other (not on top of each other} 338.5mm x 122mm [L x W]
It appears that the PISA board format is out of production and End-Of-Life for the few companies that were producing it.
This was an older and out-dated board style using obsolete electrical interfaces..
The PISA card used the IBM ISA bus which has been obsolete for a number of years now, replaced by the PCI bus.
In addition, the PCI bus used, is in the process of being replaced by the PCIexpress bus.
The PCI interface was the 32 bit, 66MHz variant, using either 5 volts or 3.3 volts.
The card carried 188 pins [copper fingers], 98 pins for the ISA interface and 90 pins for the PCI interface.
So both board interfaces were out-dated, this board specification should not be used in new designs.
However, Military and industrial requirements always have long cycles, so expect this board format to be around for years to come.
This is basically the same situation that occurred to the PC-104 boards [linked above].
The original PC104 form factor boards used the ISA bus, then added the PCI interface, which enhanced the standard.
However as the format switched to PCIexpress, interfaces that still used the ISA and PCI interfaces were rendered obsolete.
Forcing a board to operate some functions that are limited to the original PC-ISA interface speed is a burden for the entire design.
Not to mention having to drive all those slow interfaces between cards, over large foot-print connectors.
Editor note the pin outs are of course listed in the PISA standard, but omitted here because of the limited number of cards being used.
Or at the perceived number of cards still fielded, not because of any research but because of the number of visits this page receives.
The standard disclaimer used on this site for out-dated interfaces standards: This board format is obsolete and should not be used in new designs.
COTS Navigation > Engineering Home > Electronic Equipment > Card Form Factors > PISA Board Interface.
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