Patent Grant
10476192
This application claims priority to Taiwan Application Serial Number 106204892, filed Apr. 6, 2017, which is herein incorporated by reference.
The present disclosure relates to an electrical connector and, especially to an electrical connector having a serial attached SCSI (SAS) interface for adjusting high frequency signal transmission.
In pace with a development in computer and communication technologies, amount of data transmission has been considerably increased. Therefore, a connector plays an important role in creating communication between two devices. The connector has evolved from the traditional Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) to the current Serial Attached SCSI (SAS). The serial technique for high speed data-accessing overcomes traditionally technical difficulties and provides data transmission in higher speed. Moreover, the SAS is compatible with Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) devices, and hence it is beneficial for providing versatile applications.
In order to increase a signal transmission rate between two connectors, high frequency signal transmission is used. The connectors shrink down because of progress of manufacturing processes. Shrinkage of the connectors results in that internal structures such as terminals therein become too small such that issues during the high frequency signal transmission deteriorate, which affect a quality and a rate of the signal transmission. The issues may be, for example, impedances, propagation delay, propagation skew, attenuation, cross talk, and so on.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,777,667 discloses an electrical connector A. As shown in
When the conductive terminals are in contact with a plurality of corresponding mating conductive terminals, a total thickness of two contacted conductive terminals at the contact position is a total thickness of cross sections of the contacted conductive terminals. Capacitance between the neighboring conductive terminals increases due to increased opposing areas of the conductive terminals during the connection. The capacitance and the impedances are correlated, so that the impedance changes due to the contact of conductive terminals and the corresponding mating conductive terminals, resulting in affecting high frequency signal transmission efficiency.
The typical electrical connector as discussed above has a poor quality of high frequency signal transmission, so requirements of electronic industries cannot be satisfied. Therefore, an improvement for the electrical connector is desired to enhance the quality of high frequency signal transmission.
Embodiments of the present disclosure provide an electrical connector including a plurality of conductive terminals. Each of the conductive terminals includes a contact portion, a welding portion and a main body portion connected to the welding portion and the contact portion. A thickness of each of the contact portions is less than a thickness of each of the main body portions. A width of each of the contact portions is less than a width of each of the main body portions. Adjustment of the thicknesses and widths of the contact portions can overcome the aforesaid high frequency signal transmission issues.
In some embodiments, the conductive terminals are enclosed by a fixing piece respectively. The fixing piece includes a plurality of through holes exposing the main body portions of the conductive terminals. The impedances of the conductive terminals can be adjusted by contact between main body portions and air.
In some embodiments, a ground sheet is disposed on a surface of the fixing piece. The ground sheet includes a plurality of contact arms. The contact arms are electrically connected to a plurality of ground terminals of the conductive terminals through certain through holes of the fixing piece. A grounding ability of the ground sheet and an electromagnetic interference shielding ability can be improved by the ground sheet, resulting in providing better transmission quality.
Embodiments of the present disclosure provide an electrical connector including an insulator body, a plurality of conductive terminals, a plurality of ground sheets and a shell. The insulator body includes a mating cavity formed by a top plate, a bottom plate and two lateral plates. Two surfaces of the top plate and the bottom plate facing each other have a plurality of terminal trenches. The conductive terminals are respectively arranged in the terminal trenches of the insulator body. Each of the conductive terminals has a contact portion, a welding portion and a main body portion connecting the contact portion and the welding portion. Each of the welding portions extends out of the insulator body. A thickness of the contact portion is less than a thickness of the main body portion. A step height is formed between the main body portion and the contact portion. The step height is a vertical step height or an inclined step height. The main body portions of the conductive terminals are respectively enclosed by two fixing pieces. Surfaces of the fixing pieces have a plurality of through holes exposing the conductive terminals respectively. The ground sheets include a plurality of contact arms and cover the surfaces of the fixing pieces respectively. The contact arms are electrically connected to a plurality of ground terminals of the conductive terminals through the through holes of the main body portions respectively. The shell is fixed to the insulator body.
It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are by examples, and are intended to provide further explanation of the present disclosure as claimed.
The present disclosure can be more fully understood by reading the following detailed description of the embodiments, with reference made to the accompanying drawings as follows:
Reference will now be made in detail to the present embodiments of the present disclosure, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. Wherever possible, the same reference numbers are used in the drawings and the description to refer to the same or like parts.
As shown in
As shown in
A protrusion 241 and a guiding channel 242 are disposed on outer surfaces of the lateral plates 24 of the insulator body 2 adjacent to the opening of the mating cavity 21. The protrusions 241 and the guiding channels 242 can guide the shell 6 to be secured to the insulator body 2. Each of the guiding channels 242 is disposed between two ledges 243 on an outside surface of a corresponding one of the lateral plates 24. The ledges 243 are disposed on two sides neighboring the top plates 22 and the bottom plates 23 respectively. A recess formed between the ledges 243 is the guiding channel 242. The protrusions 241 are located in the guiding channels 242 respectively. Inclined surfaces 2411 are formed along a direction that the protrusions 241 face the open end of the mating cavity 21. The inclined surfaces 2411 and surfaces of the lateral plates 24 form acute angles, so that an object can be engaged with the protrusions 241.
As shown in
Due to the shrinkage of the conductive terminals 3, the conductive terminals 3 are respectively formed on two fixing pieces 4 using, for example, an insert molding technique. The two fixing pieces 4 are fixed on the main body portions 34 of the conductive terminals 3 respectively and hence a set of first conductive terminals 3a and a set of second conductive terminals 3b are formed. As shown in
At least one pair of neighboring signal terminals 31 of the set of first conductive terminals 3a and the set of second conductive terminals 3b form a differential signal pair respectively. Therefore, differential electric signals can be transmitted by the differential signal pair. Outer sides of the differential signal pair are adjacent to two ground terminals 32. By using ground-signal-signal-ground (GSSG) arrangement, electromagnetic noises generated from transmission of high frequency differential signals via the differential signal pair can be grounded by the ground terminals 32 on two sides of the differential signal pair, and hence interference to other signal terminals is reduced effectively during the high frequency signal transmission.
As shown in
The positioning members 42 are disposed on two opposed surfaces of the two fixing pieces 4. The positioning members 42 include a plurality of protruding posts 421 and a plurality of receiving portions 422 coupled with the protruding posts 421. The protruding posts 421 of one of the fixing piece 4 are disposed corresponding to the receiving portions 422 of the other fixing piece 4. Therefore, the two fixing pieces 4 can be coupled and fixed together by the protruding posts 421 and the receiving portions 422. Meanwhile, the set of first conductive terminals 3a and the set of second conductive terminals 3b are assembled together. The protrusion members 43 and the latch members 44 are disposed on surfaces of the fixing pieces 4. The protrusion members 43 and the latch members 44 are adjacent to the through holes 41 respectively.
In some embodiments, as shown in
The ground sheets 5 can be fixed to the fixing pieces 4 by using, for example, hot pressing, latching, embedding or clamping. In some of the embodiments, the ground sheets 5 are fixed by hot pressing. The holes 51 of the ground sheets 5 receive the protrusion members 43 of the fixing pieces 4 respectively. The protrusion members 43 are softened due to a high temperature of the hot pressing and hence covering surfaces of the corresponding ground sheets 5. After the protrusion members 43 cool down, the ground sheets 5 are clamped between the protrusion members 43 and the fixing pieces 4, so that the ground sheets 5 are respectively mounted on surfaces of the fixing pieces 4 stably. The contact arms 52 of the ground sheets 5 are in contact with and electrically connected to the ground terminals 32 through the second through holes 412 of the fixing pieces 4 respectively. The ground sheets 5 respectively covered by the fixing pieces 4 are beneficial for improving an electromagnetic shielding ability of the conductive terminals 3. The ground sheets 5 and the ground terminals 32 are electrically connected, so that a ground ability of the ground terminals 32 is improved. In other words, the ground terminals 32 are electrically connected to each other by the ground sheets 5. Therefore, when one ground terminal 32 receives a considerable number of noises, these noises can be distributed to other ground terminals 32 by the contact arms of the ground sheets 5. As a result, a grounding efficiency for the noises can be improved and thus functionality and efficiency of each of the ground terminals 32 are improved.
As shown in
The front ends of the contact portions 33 of the conductive terminals 3 apply a force to the corresponding carrier plates 27. The front ends of the contact portions 33 are restricted by the carrier plates 27, so that the contact portions 33 can only be elastically deformed in a direction away from the carrier plates 27. Therefore, the carrier plates 27 apply a pre-load to the contact portions 33 when the contact portions 33 are not in contact with the mating apparatus. When the mating apparatus plugs into the electrical connector 1, the contact portions 33 of the conductive terminals 3 can generate a greater normal force, so that the signal transmission of the conductive terminals 3 can be more stable. The through holes 28 penetrate through each of the terminal trenches 26 of the top plates 22 and the bottom plates 23. The through holes 28 are adjacent to the opening of the mating cavity 21 and increase a plurality of buffer spaces. The buffer spaces allow elastic deformation of the contact portions 33 when the conductive terminals 3 contact the mating apparatus, and hence irreversible breakage or deformation are avoided during the conductive terminals 3 pressing the top plates 22 and the bottom plates 23.
As shown in
In some embodiments, as shown in
As shown in
In some embodiments, an impedance of the conductive terminal is given by Z0=[(R+jωL)/(G+jωC)]1/2, where R is a series resistance, G is a shunt conductance, L is a series inductance, C is a shunt capacitance, and ω is an angular frequency. A relation shown as Z0∝(L/C)1/2 is given by the function Z0=[(R+jωL)/(G+jωC)]1/2. A capacitance is given by C=εA/d, which is obtained by solving Gauss's law, where ε is a dielectric constant of a dielectric medium layer in a capacitor, A is an area of two conductive plates in a capacitor, and d is a distance between the two conductive plates in a capacitor. In the present disclosure, a capacitance is tuned by adjusting a configuration of the conductive terminals 3, so that the impedance is adjusted as well. Since feature sizes of the electrical connectors 1 become smaller, distances between the neighboring conductive terminals 3 are reduced as well. Therefore, capacitance induced between the conductive terminals 3 increases significantly. When the electrical connector 1 is mated with the mating apparatus, the conductive terminals 3 and a plurality of mating conductive terminals of the mating apparatus (not shown) are in contact and overlap with each other. A thickness of an overlapping area of the conductive terminals 3 and the mating conductive terminals is greater than other portions of the conductive terminals 3, thus increasing opposed surface areas of the conductive terminals 3 and the mating conductive terminals. Therefore, charge accumulations become considerable and result in violent capacitance effect.
In some embodiments, adjusting the configuration of the conductive terminals 3 is beneficial for addressing the capacitance effect issue as stated above. According to the formulations above, three factors are significant in the capacitance effect. The three factors are a distance between two neighboring conductive terminals 3, opposed surface areas of the two neighboring conductive terminals 3 and a dielectric constant of dielectric medium layer between the two neighboring conductive terminals 3. Since a concern of increased opposed surface areas caused by mating the contact portions 33 of the conductive terminals 3 and the mating apparatus together may induce capacitance effect, thicknesses of the contact portions 33 of the conductive terminals 3 are adjusted. The opposed surface areas of the two neighboring contact portions 33 can be reduced by reducing thicknesses of the contact portions 33, so that the capacitance effect may be reduced.
The capacitance effect may be reduced by increasing the distance between the two neighboring conductive terminals 3 as well. Widths of the contact portions 33 of the conductive terminals 3 are less than widths of the main body portions 34, so that a distance between each of the contact portions 33 is greater than a distance between each of the main body portions 34. Therefore, the capacitance effect is reduced.
The fixing pieces 4 are made from plastic material. Since each of the fixing pieces 4 has a dielectric constant greater than air, an amount of accumulated charge in the main body portions 34 enclosed in the fixing pieces 4 is increased. Therefore, a capacitance effect of the main body portions 34 in the fixing pieces 4 is greater than a capacitance effect of the main body portions 34 exposed to air. To address such a capacitance effect issue, widths of the main body portions 34 of the conductive terminals 3 enclosed in the fixing pieces 4 are reduced, so that distances between each of the neighboring main body portions 34 in the fixing pieces 4 are increased. The main body portions 34 in the fixing pieces 4 are exposed to air by the through holes 41 respectively. Therefore, a spacing between neighboring main body portions 34 is increased, and a contact area between the conductive terminals 3 and the fixing pieces 4 is reduced. A reduced capacitance effect is attained thereby. By using such a configuration, each of the capacitance effects of the neighboring contact portions 33, main body portions 34 and the welding portions 35 of the conductive terminals 3 is reduced respectively and becomes the same. Therefore, a consistency of impedance between measurements is attained and hence the quality of high frequency signal transmission is improved.
In some embodiments, the electrical connector 1 for transmitting high frequency signals with improved conductive terminals 3 is disclosed compared to the prior art. Widths and thicknesses of conductive terminals of an electrical connector are usually the same for convenience of manufacture. In recent years, a high frequency is preferred to satisfy requirements of transmitting a large amount of data. Due to electrical connectors with small feature sizes, distances between two neighboring conductive terminals 3 become too small, so that many capacitance effect issues occur. To help solve such issues, the present disclosure provides the configuration of conductive terminals 3 which can reduce capacitance effects. By controlling thicknesses of the contact portions 33 less than thicknesses of the main body portions 34 and by controlling widths of the contact portions 33 less than widths of the main body portions 34, capacitance effects and impedances of the electrical connector 1 are modified. The impedances of the electrical connector 1 are increased due to the reduced capacitance effects of the electrical connector 1 when the contact portions 33 are mated with the mating apparatus. Therefore, the high frequency signal transmission of the electrical connector 1 satisfies industry standard requirements.
Although the present disclosure has been described in considerable detail with reference to certain embodiments thereof, other embodiments are possible. Therefore, the spirit and scope of the appended claims should not be limited to the description of the embodiments contained herein.
It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made to the structure of the present disclosure without departing from the scope or spirit of the present disclosure. In view of the foregoing, it is intended that the present disclosure cover modifications and variations of this disclosure provided they fall within the scope of the following claims.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 106204892 U | Apr 2017 | TW | national |
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| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20180294592 A1 | Oct 2018 | US |
