Patent Application
20230369809
This application claims the benefit of Chinese Patent Application No. CN202210585129.8 filed on May 16, 2022, in the China National Intellectual Property Administration, the whole disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
The present invention relates to a connection terminal, and more particularly, to a connection terminal capable of improving signal integrity (SI) performance and an electrical connector including the connection terminal, which is applicable to different application requirements, such as high-speed data transmission applications.
As data rates of high-speed links increase continually, e.g., up to 224 Gbps, it requires high requirements for a performance of a connector. It is very important to improve the signal integrity (SI) performance by adjusting structures of both the terminals and the housing of the connector. In particular, the soldering legs of terminals in a high-speed input and output connector are often narrow, and the terminals are generally wide in a main body portion thereof. Thus, there is a transition portion from the wide main body portion to the narrow soldering leg of each terminal. In addition, in order to facilitate soldering the terminal on a circuit board, there is often a bent portion from the soldering leg to the main body portion. In a conventional connector, a width of the terminal is constant at the bent portion, such as maintaining the same width as the soldering leg, and a width transition section is outside of the bent portion. From the perspective of SI, the narrow terminal will lead to an increase in impedance and occurrence of serious impedance mismatching. It is critical to optimize the SI performance while ensuring the accuracy and reliability of machining the terminal.
A connection terminal for an electrical connector according to an embodiment of the present disclosure includes a main body part, a soldering leg and a transition section. The main body part is adapted to be installed inside an insulating housing of the electrical connector. The soldering leg is adapted to be soldered onto a circuit board so as to electrically connect the connection terminal to the circuit board. The soldering leg and the main body part have different widths. The transition section extends from the main body part to the soldering leg such that a width of at least a portion of the transition section is gradually changed.
These and/or other aspects, features, and advantages of the invention will become apparent and more readily appreciated from the following description of example embodiments, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings of which:
Exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure will be described hereinafter in detail with reference to the attached drawings, wherein the like reference numerals refer to the like elements. The present disclosure may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as being limited to the embodiment set forth herein; rather, these embodiments are provided so that the present disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the concept of the disclosure to those skilled in the art.
In the following detailed description, for purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the disclosed embodiments. It will be apparent, however, that one or more embodiments may be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, well-known structures and devices are schematically shown in order to simplify the drawing.
As shown in
In an exemplary embodiment according to the present disclosure, at least one connection terminal 100 of the electrical connector is configured with a structure that can improve the signal integrity (SI) performance, so that the electrical connector can be adapted to data transmission over high-speed links, such as a data transmission rate up to 224 Gbps, to be used as a high-speed input/output connector. It should be understood that either the signal terminal or the ground terminal may be configured in this way to improve the SI performance.
In an exemplary embodiment, as shown in
As shown in the figures, the connection terminal 100 further includes a transition section 130 extending from the main body part 110 to the soldering leg 120. According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, a width of at least a portion of the transition section 130 is gradually changed in a length direction of the transition section, e.g., gradually decreasing from the first width W1 of the main body part 110 to the second width W2 of the soldering leg 120. In this way, a long and narrow portion found in prior art terminals is avoided in the transition section of the connection terminal, thereby preventing the local impedance from being increased.
As shown in
As an example, the width of the at least a portion of the transition section 130 may be changed continuously and uniformly, or changed substantially linearly, or changed continuously in a segmented mode, or changed in a stepped manner, from the first width W1 to the second width W2. Preferably, the entire transition section is bent and has a gradually changing width to further optimize the SI performance. In other examples, a portion of the transition section (such as a middle portion) is bent and its width is gradually changed. Portions connected with the main body part and the soldering leg have the same or similar width as the main body part and the soldering leg, respectively. Alternatively, the transition section includes a first portion having the same width as the main body part and a second portion extending in such a way that its width is gradually changed from the first portion to the soldering leg, but the present disclosure is not limited to this.
In the embodiments shown, at least one portion of the transition section 130, such as a portion with the gradually changed width, is a bent section to change an orientation of the connection terminal 100 (i.e., from an orientation of the main body part 110 to an orientation of the soldering leg 120) so as to be soldered on the circuit board 200. Because the gradually changing width of the transition section occurs in the bent section, a segment with the changed width can be longer, rather than a sudden change from narrow to wide in a small distance, thus a bending radius of the transition section increases accordingly. A large bending radius may reduce the influence of the change of the terminal's width on the final molding of the terminal. This avoids the risk of tearing of, or creating raw edges on, the terminal, so that the connection terminal can be machined accurately and reliably from a base material, while optimizing its SI performance.
As an example, as shown in
The transition section 130 or its bent section may be an arc-shaped section. As shown in
As shown in
It should be appreciated for those skilled in this art that the above embodiments are intended to be illustrated, and not restrictive. For example, many modifications may be made to the above embodiments by those skilled in this art, and various features described in different embodiments may be freely combined with each other without conflicting in configuration or principle.
Although several exemplary embodiments have been shown and described, it would be appreciated by those skilled in the art that various changes or modifications may be made in these embodiments without departing from the principles and spirit of the disclosure, the scope of which is defined in the claims and their equivalents.
As used herein, an element recited in the singular and proceeded with the word “a” or “an” should be understood as not excluding plural of said elements or steps, unless such exclusion is explicitly stated. Furthermore, references to “one embodiment” of the present invention are not intended to be interpreted as excluding the existence of additional embodiments that also incorporate the recited features. Moreover, unless explicitly stated to the contrary, embodiments “comprising” or “having” an element or a plurality of elements having a particular property may include additional such elements not having that property
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 202210585129.8 | May 2022 | CN | national |
