Challenges in Miniaturization: Connector Difficulties
In almost any product containing electronic components, miniaturization has become an eternal topic for engineers. Equipment such as automobiles, mobile devices, medical equipment, defense systems, consumer electronics, and home appliances all have one thing in common: they are shrinking in size to meet changes in market demand.
Factors such as market competition, consumer and industrial enterprise preferences, and market demand prompt designers to look for ways to reduce the size of electronic devices, components, wire harnesses, and enclosures.
At the same time, functionality needs to be continuously added to support the latest evolving technologies, but the industry faces significant challenges in meeting all of the above needs. For example, consumers don’t want mobile devices to get bigger.
Automakers need to continue to reduce the size and weight of vehicles to increase the range of traditional gas-powered cars, trucks and electric vehicles. In the medical field, wearable medical devices must become smaller and lighter to improve patient convenience.
Electronic connectors play an important role in design: wire-to-board, wire-to-wire, board-to-board, flexible flat cable (FFC), flexible printed circuit (FPC), input/output (I/O), power and RF ( RF) connectors are part of the electrical cycle, connectors connect power and signals throughout the device and tie all the individual parts together so that they can interact successfully.
As the overall size of products shrinks, whether to simplify equipment or to make room for other critical components, connectors must also shrink. This is a real challenge for designers.
The needs of application scenarios promote the miniaturization of connectors
Mobile devices are expected to remain portable, and as technology evolves, consumers increasingly want more electronic functions. Take 5G as an example. Manufacturers are adding new antenna arrays to support 5G’s advanced features.
Likewise, semiconductors have built-in additional functionality and increased I/O requirements. However, the larger batteries needed to meet power requirements or extend operating times also present significant challenges for designers.
The same challenge arises in the automotive world, where electronic equipment such as digital cockpits and sensing capabilities have proliferated to the point where the entire wiring harness is one of the heaviest and most expensive components.
Medical patients also want smaller, more comfortable wearable devices. Whether in consumer electronics or medical devices, industrial control devices and the Internet of Things are adding more capabilities, becoming independent edge devices that can process and store data until they can transfer it back to cloud processors.
In these critical applications, connectors often become one of the main limiting factors in reducing mechanical size. Connector terminal pitch dimensions (i.e., the distance between the centers of two adjacent contacts) must be reduced to accommodate smaller circuit boards and higher pin densities to support the required I/O expansion.
Need for Innovation
Scaling down to meet user and industry demands is a challenge. However, other design constraints and requirements also exist.
Connectors often perform more than a single task in devices and also carry high-frequency signal transmission, such as 5G or other cellular and Wi-Fi communications, as well as other forms of signals and even power. Shielding becomes complex, pins need to be isolated from each other, and connectors require additional housing.
The small size of pins and contacts leaves less material to make a given connection, imposing tighter limits on the amount of signal and even power they can carry.
Smaller geometries create additional heat, and smaller-sized connections create greater resistance, so the heat must be dissipated. Components are more compactly laid out and have less space around them, which also means less space is available to guide air to cool components and connectors.
Smaller connectors result in reduced signal transmission and may increase signal loss. Selecting the correct connector type and designing it into the appropriate location on the printed circuit board can have a significant positive impact on its form factor and overall signal-to-noise performance.
Challenges facing manufacturing
If electrical design requires creative thinking, so does manufacturing engineering. There are many obstacles to miniaturizing connectors that manufacturers must learn to clear.
Connectors can be very small, which makes it difficult for people to assemble them, especially when the connectors can be as big as a grain of rice. These smaller connectors are also more fragile and can easily break if not handled properly. This makes assembly more complex and time-consuming, whether done by machines or humans.
A little too much force on the factory line can destroy not just the connector, but the entire device, significantly increasing operating costs. These challenges grow exponentially when workers on factory production lines are often required to handle thousands of connectors per day.
In addition to the fragile nature of miniaturized connectors, manufacturers have many other considerations when designing with them.
These include understanding how to repair damaged connectors, applying correct mating forces, and considering the required geometry based on the layout of the component or device. All of these manufacturing challenges make selecting the right connector partner an essential step in the design process.