Patent Application
20190273341
The present disclosure relates generally to information handling systems, and more particularly, to a connector for providing high-speed signal transfer between electrical components.
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Various hardware components of information handling systems are electrically connected in order to provide or allow for the transfer or communication of signals from one component to another. These connections can be made through the use of various wiring, lines, plugs, pins, slots, sockets, etc., for example, on a printed circuit board (PCB), midplane, backplane, rack system, etc. to or through which the hardware components are mounted or attached.
It is becoming increasingly challenging to ensure signal quality for these components that are connected to each other through multiple connectors. Next generation modular designs are intended to support 32-56 Gbps technologies through PCBs, midplanes, backplanes, etc. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide an improved connector technology to ensure support for the high speed signal rates of next generation technology.
In accordance with the teachings of the present disclosure, the disadvantages and problems associated with resonance in connector stubs have been reduced or eliminated.
In accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure, a connector may include a housing and a pin housed in the housing and configured to electrically couple to a corresponding electrically-conductive conduit of a device comprising the connector. A body of the pin is formed of a material having a first conductivity. The pin may include a first portion between a proximal point of the pin and a medial point of the pin, and a second portion between the medial point of the pin and a distal point of the pin. The medial point of the pin is proximate to a point of electrical contact of the pin with another pin. The second portion is at least partially covered by a layer of material having a second conductivity that is lower than the first conductivity.
In accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure, a method for forming a connector, includes constructing a body of a pin from a material having a first conductivity. The pin has a first portion between a proximal point of the pin and a medial point of the pin, and a second portion between the medial point of the pin and a distal point of the pin, the medial point of the pin being proximate to a point of electrical contact of the pin with another pin. The method also includes at least partially covering the second portion of the pin with a layer of material having a second conductivity that is lower than the first conductivity.
Technical advantages of the present disclosure may be readily apparent to one skilled in the art from the figures, description and claims included herein. The advantages of the embodiments will be realized and achieved at least by the elements, features, and combinations particularly pointed out in the claims.
It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are examples and explanatory and are not restrictive of the claims set forth in this disclosure.
A more complete understanding of the present embodiments and advantages thereof may be acquired by referring to the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like reference numbers indicate like features, and wherein:
In the following description specific details are set forth describing certain embodiments. It will be apparent to one skilled in the art, however, that the disclosed embodiments may be practiced without some or all of these specific details. The specific embodiments presented are meant to be illustrative, but not limiting. One skilled in the art may realize other material that, although not specifically described herein, is within the scope and spirit of this disclosure.
For purposes of this disclosure, an information handling system (IHS) may include any instrumentality or aggregate of instrumentalities operable to compute, calculate, determine, classify, process, transmit, receive, retrieve, originate, switch, store, display, communicate, manifest, detect, record, reproduce, handle, or utilize any form of information, intelligence, or data for business, scientific, control, or other purposes. For example, an information handling system may be a personal computer (e.g., desktop or laptop), tablet computer, mobile device (e.g., personal digital assistant (PDA) or smart phone), server (e.g., blade server or rack server), a network storage device, or any other suitable device and may vary in size, shape, performance, functionality, and price. The information handling system may include random access memory (RAM), one or more processing resources such as a central processing unit (CPU), graphics processing unit (GPU), or other hardware or software control logic, ROM, and/or other types of nonvolatile memory. Additional components of the information handling system may include one or more disk drives, one or more network ports for communicating with external devices as well as various input and output (I/O) devices, such as a keyboard, a mouse, touchscreen and/or a video display. The information handling system may also include one or more buses operable to transmit communications between the various hardware components.
Additionally, some embodiments of information handling systems include non-transient, machine-readable media that include executable code that when run by a processor, may cause the processor to perform various steps or tasks. Some common forms of machine-readable media include, for example, floppy disk, flexible disk, hard disk, magnetic tape, any other magnetic medium, CD-ROM, any other optical medium, punch cards, paper tape, any other physical medium with patterns of holes, RAM, PROM, EPROM, FLASH-EPROM, any other memory chip or cartridge, and/or any other medium from which a processor or computer is adapted to read.
As an example,
An information handling system, such as IHS 100, may include one or more circuit boards operable to mechanically support and electrically couple electronic components making up the information handling system. For example, circuit boards may be used as part of motherboards, memories, storage devices, storage device controllers, peripherals, peripheral cards, network interface cards, and/or other electronic components. As used herein, the term “circuit board” includes printed circuit boards (PCBs), printed wiring boards (PWBs), etched wiring boards, and/or any other board or similar physical structure operable to mechanically support and electrically couple electronic components. The circuit board is configured to provide structural support for one or more information handling resources of information handling system and/or electrically couple one or more of such information handling resources to each other and/or to other electric or electronic components external to information handling system.
For the purposes of this disclosure, information handling resources may broadly refer to any component system, device or apparatus of an information handling system, including without limitation processors, service processors, basic input/output systems, buses, memories, I/O devices and/or interfaces, storage resources, network interfaces, motherboards, and/or any other components and/or elements of an information handling system.
As is known in the art, a circuit board may comprise a plurality of conductive layers separated and supported by layers of insulating material laminated together, with conductive traces disposed on and/or in any of such conductive layers. As is also known in the art, connectivity between conductive traces disposed on and/or in various layers of a circuit board may be provided by conductive vias. In some embodiments, the circuit board may comprise a circuit board having one or more connectors such as those connectors disclosed herein.
To electrically couple various components in an IHS, such as IHS 100 shown in
One type of mating between connectors may be referred to as a mating blade architecture, depicted in
As a result of the coupling between a blade pin 14 and its corresponding beam pin 20, portions of each of blade pin 14 and beam pin 20 may be “unused” in the sense that such portions are present but not needed to conduct a signal between blade pin 14 and beam pin 20. Rather, such portions are present to create mechanical features ensuring the physical mating of connectors 10 and 16. For example, as can be seen from
Each stub 24 and 26 may act as an antenna, and thus may resonate at frequencies (and harmonics thereof) for which the length of such stub 24 or 26 is equal to one-quarter of the wavelength of such frequencies. As transmission frequencies used in the communication pathways of information handling systems increase, signals operating at such frequencies may be affected by such resonances, resulting in decreased signal integrity.
Some approaches may be employed to mitigate the effect of stub resonances, but such approaches still have disadvantages. For example, an alternative to the mating blade architecture, and known as a mating beam architecture, is depicted in
“Secondary” stubs are common in connector arrangements, and cannot be removed without affecting the mechanical design and manufacturability yield. Any stub (e.g., stubs 24, 26 in
Resonance due to “secondary” stubs is of limited concern for older generations of signaling between electronic components, but as the signaling speeds continue to increase, the secondary stub resonance starts to pose a significant problem for signal integrity. In some examples, the length of a secondary stub is on the order of 10s of mils, and higher frequency (e.g., 32 Gbps or higher, or 64 GHz or higher) signals are typically highly impacted by the secondary stub resonance. This is illustrated, for example, by the line 402 in
To address the issue of resonance attributable to stubs in connector arrangements, a mechanism for connector beam mating is herein described, which significantly reduces the impact of the secondary stubs while maintaining mechanical reliability.
The beam pin 504 illustrated in
Local minimum point 521 of beam pin 504 may correspond to an approximate electrical contact point 510 at which such beam pin 504 may physically come in contact with a corresponding pin of a second connector when mated with the second connector. Extending away from its approximate electrical contact point 510, beam pin 504 may include a stub 506 corresponding to the negatively sloped portion 519. Stub 506 may have a shape or other physical features to facilitate mechanical mating of connector 500 to the second connector and adequate electrical contact between beam pins 504 and corresponding pins of the second connector.
As shown in
The layer or plating 508 may serve to dampen or reduce losses due to resonance from the stub 506. In particular, at high frequencies, the charge is usually distributed at the surface of the conductor so that the lower conductivity layer 508—rather than the higher conductivity material (e.g., gold or copper)—conducts the current in the stub 506. As such, when the lower conductivity layer 508 carries the current in stub 506, it would not carry the same amount of current as the higher conductivity material (e.g., gold or copper), thus pushing the resonance generated by the stub 506 beyond the frequency of interest. Accordingly, a resonant quarter wavelength of stub 506 comprising layer 508 may occur at significantly higher frequencies compared to a stub 506 not having such layer 508. In some embodiments, the resonance properties of stub 506 may be controlled by constructing layer 508 with physical properties (e.g., material, shape, thickness, etc.) to provide for resonance at a particular frequency. The mathematical equivalence can be explained using the equalization below:
wherein Rstub is the resistance of stub 506, Lstub is the inductance of stub 506, Cstub is the capacitance of stub 506, ω is the angular frequency, and Qstub is the quality factor of stub 506. Qstub is dampened making it broadband. More specifically, as Rstub increases, Qstub becomes smaller and broadband in nature.
Since the purpose of the conductive beam pin 504 is to contact the corresponding pin or beam of another connector, a lower conductivity material would work even if the material of layer 508 is extended to the electrical contact point 510 making it less sensitive to manufacturing tolerances. In some examples, a side effect of such implementation may be a slight increase in loss at DC (0 Hz) and low frequencies. In some examples, many receiving components are equipped with gain and equalization circuitry, which may compensate for the DC loss and/or low frequency loss caused by overlap of layer 508 at electrical contact point 510. In contrast, equalization circuitry typically does not adequately compensate for a resonance loss.
In some embodiments, the lower conductivity plating or layer may be applied or extended to a greater portion of the beam pin, including at the electrical contact point and beyond. In some embodiments, the lower conductivity plating or layer can be applied to a blade pin (e.g., blade pin 14 described with reference to
One or more of these connectors, according to various embodiments of the invention, can be incorporated or employed, for example, in various sockets, pins, plugs, etc., such as QSFP28, QSFP-DD, OSFP connector systems, plated through-hole connector, surface mount connectors, co-planar connectors, orthogonal connectors, and mezzanine connectors, to reduce or eliminate the loss due to resonance attributable to a stub in the connector.
A method 600 of manufacturing a connector, in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure is illustrated in
As used herein, when two or more elements are referred to as “coupled” to one another, such term indicates that such two or more elements are in electronic communication or mechanical communication, as applicable, whether connected indirectly or directly, with or without intervening elements.
This disclosure encompasses all changes, substitutions, variations, alterations, and modifications to the example embodiments herein that a person having ordinary skill in the art would comprehend. Similarly, where appropriate, the appended claims encompass all changes, substitutions, variations, alterations, and modifications to the example embodiments herein that a person having ordinary skill in the art would comprehend. Moreover, reference in the appended claims to an apparatus or system or a component of an apparatus or system being adapted to, arranged to, capable of, configured to, enabled to, operable to, or operative to perform a particular function encompasses that apparatus, system, or component, whether or not it or that particular function is activated, turned on, or unlocked, as long as that apparatus, system, or component is so adapted, arranged, capable, configured, enabled, operable, or operative.
Although illustrative embodiments have been shown and described, a wide range of modification, change and substitution is contemplated in the foregoing disclosure and in some instances, some features of the embodiments may be employed without a corresponding use of other features. Accordingly, it is appropriate that the appended claims be construed broadly and in a manner consistent with the scope of the embodiments disclosed herein.
