A specialized printed circuit board that acts as a central communication bus, featuring multiple connectors wired in parallel. It serves as the physical and electrical backbone of a modular system, allowing daughterboards or line cards to plug in and communicate. Backplanes typically contain no active processing components, relying on thick copper layers to handle high current distribution and strict impedance control for high-speed data buses.
The server chassis uses a passive backplane to distribute power and PCIe lanes to the compute blades.
Related terms
Daughterboard
A secondary circuit board that plugs directly into a main motherboard to add specific functionality.
PCB
Printed Circuit Board, the physical fiberglass and copper substrate that holds and connects components.
Impedance control
Designing and building traces to a target impedance, such as 50 or 100 ohms, within a set tolerance.