|
Gordon Vinther is president and founder of Ardent Concepts (Hampton, NH), a company best known for the design and manufacture of custom spring loaded interconnects, as well as high performance test socket and connector technology. As a technologist specializing in the field of electronics interconnect, Gordon has been a contributing author and blogger for Interconnection World (ICW) on topics crucial to fields of interconnect technical design and business analysis. This past July, it was announced that Amphenol InterCon Systems (AIS) had licensed Ardent Concepts' compression mount connector technology. ICW interviewed Gordon at that time, asking him for his thoughts on the significance of this news for his company, as well as reflections on the connector industry at large.
ICW: How did the licensing agreement with Amphenol Intercon Systems (AIS) come about for Ardent?
GV: We’ve known about AIS since the inception of the company, when it was Teradyne. Before Teradyne had sold to Amphenol, they had an option on our technology, pretty much at the outset of our company. So, we kept in touch with them since the beginning. They are signal integrity experts. They make connectors for connecting backplanes and computers, so they’re a perfect partner for us, because they understand signal integrity, and that’s really our core competence.
AIS is also known for targeting the custom interconnect segment, which covers quite a wide swath of application possibilities.
Yes, they have a few niches that they’ve exploited over the years. Those customers are pushing them into higher densities, and they needed a new technology to get them to the next density step. So, they knew about our company, they knew about our technology, and they called us about it.
Medical electronics interconnect is known as one of AIS's target niche markets. Any implications for you in this particular?
It’s a niche, but it’s a lucrative niche. There’s a lot of compression connectors used in ultrasound equipment, to connect the wands to the ultrasound base, and those have to be high frequency connectors – they can’t be pin and socket, because pin and socket connectors are generally too lossy. If you look on the front panel of a piece of ultrasound equipment, there’s a whole gang of compliant connectors there, and those are all capable of very high frequency, and that’s the same space we play in.
I would imagine that pairing up with Amphenol significantly "changes the game" for a company such as Ardent.
It certainly does. I mean, from the floor level, it justifies the technology -- it says that [our] technology is something to look at, something that we can manufacture in high volumes that fills certain product needs. From a high level, if we get into a situation where we have a customer that demands throughput of thousands a day, or millions a year -- a lot of times, with our capabilities here, in a little New Hampshire company, we can’t handle it. But, if a customer knows that we have the backing of a company like Amphenol -- that has manufacturing resources all across the world, really -- they then know that we can scale to meet their demand, if the product lifecycle asks for it.
What are the most recent developments/challenges in the market for custom spring loaded connectors and other types of interconnects that Ardent provides?
As of late, it’s been apparent that there’s more Far East incumbents that are pushing the envelope and are actually getting the real high volumes on some of these connectors. So, it then becomes incumbent upon companies like mine to stay ahead of the curve -- and to innovate, to carve out sections of technology where we’re just a little bit better at this, or a little bit bettar at that, so that we can stay ahead of the game, when it comes to competing with manufacturers that are on the billion dollar level. And one way to do that is to partner up with companies like Amphenol.
What are the main challenges for smaller connector companies such as Ardent, in an industry dominated by giants such as Amphenol and Molex?
It’s a tough place to be in, in that we’re a little bit ahead of the market all the time in density and frequency -- but eventually the market comes around to meet us. I think it’s important to stay ahead of the competition from a technology standpoint, to where we can compete against the companies from Asia that are making millions of connectors, and maintain our niches, and stay ahead of the technology curve. The needs of the market are changing all the time. It’s always the case that speed and density are going up, and I feel that it takes small pockets of innovators that can develop things quickly and nimbly that can meet these demands.
What’s next for Ardent Concepts?
I'm just trying to address the fact that, whenever I come into one of these applications that I see is a little bit behind the curve, I see that the Asian suppliers have already been there, and have already delivered millions of [connectors]. So, it’s up to me to take it to the next step to see what’s going to be required tomorrow or next year, or three years from now.
See Also:
