The PC/104™ Consortium was established in February 1992 based on the vision to adapt desktop computer technology for embedded applications. Although small, PC/104™ has proven to be simple and elegant in design, while providing rugged performance on land and space. PC/104™ technology merges the successes of past technologies with the confidence of future innovations.

Since its inception and adoption, the PC/104™ Consortium has evolved and expanded upon its original purpose. Below are descriptions of PCI/Express™, PC/104-Plus™, and PC/104™ along with links to the appropriate Samtec part numbers.

The base PC/104™ Standard defines a compact form-factor that can be used in self-stacking buses. This eliminates the cost and bulk of backplanes and card cages.

The PC/104™ Standard extends upon the existing PC bus allowing companies that embed PC technology in limited space applications to have a standardized system architecture as well as a broader range of vendors and vendor support.

PC/104-Plus™ is a specification that was accepted in 1997 by the PC/104™ Consortium and establishes a standard for embedded applications with the use of a high speed PCI bus.

Like the PC/104™ extends upon the PC bus, the PC/104-Plus™ is an extension of the PC/104™ with all of the same benefits, plus more.

The PCI/104-Express™ specification establishes a standard to use a high speed PCI Express® bus in embedded applications.

The PC/104™ Consortium chose PCI Express® because of its full PC market adoption, performance, scalability, and growing silicon availability worldwide. It provides a new high-performance physical interface while retaining software compatibility with existing PCI infrastructure.