A connector’s ability to stand up to environmental stresses, such as shock and vibration, depends heavily on the quality of its contacts. Additionally, the trend toward miniaturization across many applications is requiring connector contacts to maintain high levels of performance in a smaller footprint. This Connector Specifier editorial guide examines the important role that contacts play in resisting shock/vibration-induced degradation and discusses the technological development of contacts as connectors miniaturize. The guide looks at medical and aerospace applications as examples of shock/ vibration resistance, and includes articles on nano and MEMS connector development.

All components on printed circuit boards, including connectors, are constantly evolving toward miniaturization and higher performance. Achieving both characteristics is requiring connector manufacturers to push their manufacturing, process, and materials capabilities to the limit. This Connector Specifier editorial guide discusses some of the latest technologies used to achieve higher-density, higher-performing board connectors. It explores advances in press-fit technology, socket adapter systems, lead-free/hybrid board connectors, and zero-insertion-force connectors.

User demand for ever-faster network transmission has driven standards-making bodies to produce ultra high- speed protocols, designed to handle today’s and tomorrow’s network traffic. The physical infrastructure that supports these transmission speeds, particularly the connectivity technologies within that physical infrastructure, plays a basic but critical role in ensuring network throughput. This Connector Specifier editorial guide focuses on the physical design and performance characteristics of connectors that make them capable of supporting established, new and emerging network-transmission protocols.

Suitable for use in a wide range of applications, from medical devices to communications equipment, spring-loaded connectors represent a versatile tool for design engineers. Particularly useful when designs incorporate the x, y, and z axes, these connector types are often deployed when the end product is a lowprofile design. This Connector Specifier editorial guide offers three viewpoints on spring-loaded connectors: their necessity in simplistic compression-mount designs; their use in a multitude of consumer electronics devices; and the robustness that enables their use in applications far beyond test and measurement.

Until recently benchtop and semi-automatic wire processing machines were the only choice for harness production. Yet conditions today often cause manual insertion to result in higher scrap rates and quality control issues. Some reasons for this include the increased complexity and miniaturization of components  which lead to greater difficulty in manually handling smaller wire sizes.