Changing industry for connectors

A research report providing a description of the major connector initiatives and their impact on technology driving the connector industry has been published by Bishop & Assoc in the US. The aim of the report is to create a resource for understanding the new technologies, their purpose and uniqueness and to provide a basis for determining their viability in an ever-changing world of electronic systems.

The report supplies information needed to understand each technology and to access opportunities around each technology. Many of these technologies were originally developed for the computer industry but they also impact both the consumer and telecom market.

The long awaited convergence has begun and developments in one part of the market can permeate others.

In addition, the report provides the sales volume for each connector along with the rationale behind its importance to the industry. The report is organised by individual technology and provides both an executive summary of each technology and a more in-depth analysis of each.

The industry has changed. The time when OEMs designed unique systems and selected peculiar hardware has almost come to an end. Custom connectors were a part of this uniqueness. Companies in response to requirements from the OEMs designed connectors from scratch.

Today, the system design effort takes place at the integrated semiconductor designers' workstations, creating standardised building blocks which OEMs will connect together to build their almost identical hardware systems - systems that will use standard interconnects.

The reality is that the role of the connector has changed in just a few short years. The connector was mainly a mechanical device that was needed to provide a separable interface. The requirement for a new connector was most often driven by a form factor change and electrical performance was almost a secondary consideration.

With the increase in the speed of today's technology, that is no longer the case. The electrical performance of the connector is primary in the design of a connector and the design process reflects that for current connectors.

No longer is a connector designed and then tested for electrical performance. Design begins with electrical modelling of the connector to ensure that the performance of the connector will not adversely affect the performance of the circuitry into which it will be inserted.

The evaluation of the electrical performance of a connector is the responsibility of the signal integrity engineer whose importance to the connector industry has soared in recent years. Once a minor responsibility, SI is now a separate department at the larger connector manufacturers and is vital to the design process.

The USB connector is an example of one of the technologies covered in this report.

With PC systems numbering around 150 million a year, the decision by Intel to natively support six to eight USB 2.0 ports in its latest chipsets immediately creates a market for over a billion connectors a year for just the computer side of the interface.

The viability of USB increased when the data rate of the connector went from 12 to 480 Mbps.

Meanwhile IEEE 1394, another serial technology, has increased its speed to 800 Mbps with the release of the IEEE 1394b specification. Its impact is explored as well as that of the proposed addition of a 1394 wireless specification and the possible adoption of a 'wireless USB' as the UWB standard.

Published by courtesy of Bishop Assoc Inc USA.

Further information from Robin S Pearce, Bishop and Assoc - ANZ apearce4@bigpond.net.au