For military connector manufacturers, in addition to their productivity, they also care about product quality. When it comes to product quality, many aspects will be involved, such as the performance of high-speed micro-pitch interconnects for connectors.
In general, there are nine main methods to improve the high-speed micro-pitch interconnect performance of military connectors:
- Connector products, in the early stages of design, need to perform multiple simulation cycles to accurately quantify product performance before starting an expensive processing process.
- When the connector is mated, the stub in the contact area should be minimized. The longer the stub, the better the reliability, but the stub is an electrical load like an antenna.
- Simplify contact geometry and improve signal path performance.
- Shorten the pin length to minimize the distance that the signal must travel.
- Add asymmetric footprints and contacts as much as possible, because the alternating design reduces pair-wise crosstalk between rows of pins and between rows. It can also be said that footprint should drive connector performance.
- Optimize the connector branch area (BOR). Think of the connector as a key node in the link, not only focusing on the node, but also the link.
- Where space permits, incorporate a common ground plane into the connector.
- The choice of plastic molding will obviously affect the performance of the connector. These attributes should be carefully considered: high-temperature plastics suitable for RoHS, matching Dk to obtain the required impedance control, dimensional stability of temperature and time.
- The shorter and straighter the contact between the signal path and the connector, the better its signal integrity. But the balance function is that the connector must have sufficient normal force and exit force, and it also needs to have a certain degree of robustness.
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