1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to electrical connectors and, more specifically to a contact planted on a dielectric housing of an electrical connector adapted to electrically mate an integral circuit (IC) package such as a central processing unit (CPU), with an electrical substrate such as a printed circuit board (PCB), wherein the contact is configured to have a long spring arm to improve spring characteristics thereof.
2. Description of the Prior Art
With the development of the connector industry toward the miniaturized, high-density and more reliable trends, generally, terminals or contacts secured on connectors, especially certain connectors used for electrically interconnecting an IC package, especially an land grid array (LGA) package with high-density leads or pads thereon with a PCB, are configured to be tiny and arranged in a high-density manner, e.g. a rectangular array, to catch up with the trends. This typically leads a problem, e.g. how to maintain good reliable electrical characteristics of the terminals or contacts of the connectors under these conditions.
One key factor to the above problem is focused on good normal force of the terminals or contacts which has direct and great effect on performance of the terminals or contacts. Except for material properties of the terminals or contacts, configuration or structures of the terminals or contacts play the important role in effecting normal force. Accordingly, optimized structures or configurations are increasingly becoming the useful and important weapon for manufacturers to prevail the connector market. Many ways to get better structures or configurations for the terminals of contacts have been invented so far.
One advanced way is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,984,693, assigned to Hon Hai who is also the assignee of the present invention. In this way, an LGA contact has a plate-like retention portion and a curved arm upwardly extending from a lower portion of the retention portion. An upright section is formed at an upper end of the arm, for electrically engaging a corresponding conductive pad of a CPU chip. With this configuration of the contact, the contact can have a relatively long arm, thereby facilitating improvement of contact characteristics thereof, namely, gaining good normal force.
However, the curved arm is disposed substantially within a corresponding contact-receiving passageway of a dielectric housing. Further, the arm has two main sub-arms extended in a horizontal direction vertical to a main surface of the retention portion. That is, the longer the arm is, the wider the horizontal projection of the arm becomes. Anyway, this will directly elongate a pitch of two adjacent contact-receiving passageways standing in a contact-receiving passageway row, thereby blocking the development of the contacts arranged in the housing toward the high-density trend.
Except for the above disadvantage, the upright section has an arc top surface with a topmost line left to electrically engage a bottom surface of the pad. When the contact mates with the chip, the upright section will be deflected aside. This is prone to result in engagement of only a point of the topmost line with the bottom surface of the pad. Thus, mating performance between the pad and the contact is liable to be in an inferior position.
In view of the above, it is strongly desired to provide a new LGA contact which overcomes the above-mentioned disadvantages.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a new LGA contact able to be configured to have a relatively long elastic arm.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a new LGA contact for an electrical connector, wherein many of this kind of contacts can be planted in a housing of the connector in a relatively less pitch.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a new LGA contact for electrical connector, wherein the contact can assure reliable electrical engagement between the contact and an electrical device mounted on the electrical connector.
To fulfill the above-mentioned objects, a new LGA contact provided according to the present invention comprises a vertical basic part for being secured on a cell defined in a housing of an electrical connector, a vertical section extending bendedly and outwardly from a lateral side of the vertical basic part, an elastic arm extending upwardly from a top of said vertical section and a contacting portion being connected to the arm and adapted for electrically engaging a conductive member of an IC package. When said vertical section and the vertical basic part are projected on a horizontal surface, a projection of said vertical section is orientated at an acute angle relative to a projection of the vertical basic part, thereby the arm can be devised to be relatively long. After many of this kind of contacts are assembled on the housing, a pitch between two adjacent contacts standing a same line can be relatively short. Thereby, good spring characteristics of the contact are gained to assure electrical engagement between the contact and the conductive member and a density of arrangement of the contacts on the housing is high.
An improvement of the above contact is to configure the arm of the contact to have a rearwardly extending portion and a forwardly extending portion. With this configuration of the arm, the arm can be further longer.
Another improvement of the above contact is to make the arm further comprise a straight middle portion between the rearwardly extending portion and the forwardly extending portion, thereby also further elongating the arm.
Still another improvement of the above contact is to design the contacting portion to have a curved configuration with a curved mating surface, thereby the curved mating surface can have different parts thereof alternatively engaged with the conductive member. This decreases the risk of damaging to the conductive member or/and the contacting portion during moving of the contacting portion relative to the conductive member.
Furthermore, another improvement of the above contact is to dispose a part of the arm of the contact outside the housing as being assembled on the housing, thereby the arm can not be restricted by a space of the cell. Thus, the arm can be devised to be longer again.
Other objects, advantages and novel features of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
The features of the present invention which are believed to novel are set forth with particularity in the appended claims. The invention, together with its objects and the advantages thereof, may be best understood by reference to the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like reference numerals identify like elements and in which:
Reference will now be made to the drawings to describe the present invention in detail.
Referring to
The housing 50 is formed from dielectric material and defines a horizontal top surface 52 and a bottom surface 54 opposite and parallel to the top surface 52. A plurality of cavities 56 is defined in the housing 50 between the top surface 52 and the bottom surface 54 and arranged in rows and columns, for receiving corresponding contacts 40 therein. Further, an opening 58 is defined in a center of a top of the housing 50 above the cavities 56 and in communication therewith, for receiving the IC package 32. It is appreciated that the opening 58 should have the same profile configuration as the IC package 32. Guiding slant surfaces 59 are formed on the housing 50 around a top mouth of the opening 58, for facilitating insertion of the IC package 32 into the opening 58.
Referring also to
A plurality of protrusions 55 is formed on the housing 50, projecting upright above the top surface 52 of the housing 50. The protrusions 55 have a common mounting surface 550 adapted to engagingly mount or support the IC package 32. In the first preferred embodiment, each protrusion 55 is located adjacent a corresponding cavity, and has a substantially right-angle trapezium-like cross-section, but is not limited thereto. The protrusion 55 may have other shapes or configurations, e.g. parallelepiped configuration, step-like projection and so on, provided that those kinds of protrusions 55 can each provide the mounting surface 550 and avoid intervening the contacts 40.
In order to facilitate being precisely sited on the PCB 34, several standoffs (not shown) are provided on the bottom surface 54, thereby spacing the bottom surface 54 of the housing 50 a pre-determined interval from a top surface of the PCB 34. Said interval can supply a space enough to position soldering balls 36 therein (referring to
Referring also to
For more securable position of the contact 40 in a corresponding cavity 56, an upright rectangular plate-like head 44 coplanarly projecting from a top end of the base 42, for being secured in the slot 562. It should be understood that the head 44 can be configured to have other configurations if it can be fixed in the slot 562.
A tail 46 is connected to a bottom end of the base 42, having a vertical position with respect to the base 42. The tail 46 has a relatively larger bottom surface 460 vertical to the major surface 420 of the base 42 and adapted to engage a solder member, e.g. solder ball 36, thereby establishing electrical engagement between the contact and the PCB 34 (best seen in
A connecting neck 41 is provided to connect the tail 46 and the base 42. Since the neck 41 has a configuration relatively narrower or smaller than those of the tail 46 and the base 42, it is easy to be bent. This decreases the risk of damage to the tail 41 or the base 42 during forming the vertical position between the base 42 and the tail 41.
A vertical side limb 43 is bent or extended from a lateral edge of the head 44 at an obtuse angle, adjacent the base 42. It is also clearly understood that the limb 43 has an obtuse angle relationship relative to the major surface 420 of the base 42 or the head 44.
An arm 48 extends upwardly from a top end of the limb 43. To make the arm 48 longer, the arm 48 is devised to have a curved configuration with an upwardly and rearwardly extending lower portion 480 stemming from the top end of the limb 43 along a direction sl, and an upwardly and forwardly extending upper portion 482 originating from a distal end of the lower portion 480 along another direction s2.
The contact 40 further has an arced or curved peak 49 formed at a topmost part thereof with its distal end facing downwardly. The peak 49 is formed at a distal end of the arm 48 and has an arced or curved upper surface 490 for electrically engagingly mating with a corresponding conductive pad 320 of the IC package 32. From a top view of the contact 40, a projection of the arm 48 extends at an acute angle x with respect to a projection of the base 42 and is located at opposite sides of a projection of the limb 43 (best shown in
With the configuration of the contact 40, the arm 48 extends in a curve way and is devised to make the good use of a space of a corresponding cavity 56, thereby the arm 48 can be relatively long.
Referring to
After assembly, the arm 48 has an upper part of the upwardly and forwardly extending upper portion 482 projected beyond the top surface 52 of the housing 50 and above the mounting surface 550 of the protrusions 55. The raised peak 49 is at a topmost position of the contact 40 in an upright direction vertical to the top surface 52 or the mounting surface 550, and ready to electrically engage a corresponding pad 320 of the chip 32. The tail 46 is then vertically bent to be received in the bottom recess 566 of the housing 50. Thus, the contact 40 is completely planted on the housing 50.
With this arrangement design of the contact 40 in the cavity 56, the arm 48 is extended beyond the top surface 52 of the housing 50 and hence is not restricted by the space of the cavity 56. Therefore, the arm 48 can also be devised to be relatively long.
Referring also to
Referring also to
When the IC package 32 is pressed down, the pad 320 has a bottom surface pressed the peak 49 of the contact 40 to urge the arm 48 of the contact 40 to resiliently deform down. Because the contact 40 has the above-described arm 48 and good resilient characteristics, a good normal force can be gained to assure good engagement between the pad 320 and the contact 40. During said pressing of the IC package 32, the upwardly and rearwardly extending portion 480 and the upwardly and forwardly extending portion 482 deform downwardly to generate spring force. Said spring force assures engagement between the peak 49 and the pad 320.
During deforming of the contact 40, with the arced or curved configuration of the upper surface 490 of the peak 49, the upper surface 490 has different parts alternatively engaged with corresponding different parts of the bottom surface of the pad 320. This manner can decrease friction between the peak 49 and the pad 320 and hence decrease the risk of damaging to the pad 320 or/and the contact 40 by friction force generated from engagingly sliding of the peak 49 relative to the bottom surface of the pad 320.
Similar to the configuration of the contact 40, from a top view of the contact 40′, a projection of the arm 48‘extends at an acute angle x’ relative to a projection of the base 42′. A projection of the limb 43′ has the acute angle relationship with a major surface 420′ of the base 42′, a projection of the head 44′ or the projection of the base 42′, from a top view of the connector 30′. This leads the projection of the arm 48 at an acute angle y′ with respect to a row direction, the projection of the base 42′ or the projection of the head 44′. Moreover, a length l′ of the projection of the arm 48 is longer than a pith p′ of two contacts 40′ standing in said row. Thereby, the arm 48′ can also be devised to be longer and all the contacts 40′ can be arrayed in the housing 50′ in a relatively short pitch therebetween, but there is no interference between the arms 48′ of two adjacent contacts 40′ standing in said row during being pressed down in use.
Referring to
Furthermore, the contact 40′ and the housing 50′ have some improved points.
Referring to
Referring to
Referring to
Furthermore, although the present invention has been described with reference to particular embodiments, it is not to be construed as being limited thereto. Various alterations and modifications can be made to the embodiments without in any way departing from the scope or spirit of the present invention as defined in the appended claims.
Number | Name | Date | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
5350322 | Kondo | Sep 1994 | A |
5685748 | Harting et al. | Nov 1997 | A |
5711690 | Thrush et al. | Jan 1998 | A |
5980323 | Bricaud et al. | Nov 1999 | A |
5984693 | McHugh et al. | Nov 1999 | A |
6113440 | Fijten et al. | Sep 2000 | A |
6231394 | Schnell et al. | May 2001 | B1 |
6652329 | Howell et al. | Nov 2003 | B1 |
6752635 | Searls et al. | Jun 2004 | B1 |