The electronics industry must respond to constant shifts in technology, product development, and market growth. Some companies nurture that capability in-house, while others gain expertise through strategic acquisitions. Here’s a brief history of that strategy as enacted by and upon connector companies. Since 1985, Bishop & Associates has recorded 589 mergers and acquisitions in theRead More

Autonomous machines and the Internet of Things have brought sensors to the forefront of electronics design. As the Internet of Things continues to expand and more applications feature autonomous functions, sensors have become an integral part of many electronic products. They capture the information that brings capability, autonomy, and precision to products in markets rangingRead More

The possibility of battery-free cell phones poses an existential threat to connector makers — or a new challenge. By Neil Shurtz Ask anyone what the biggest flaw is with their smartphone, and they’ll probably say it’s the battery. Relative to their massively expanded computing power and functionality, cell phones have actually come a long wayRead More

IoT technology has enabled life-changing innovations in medicine, security, transportation, and communication. But it’s also unleashed a wave of unnecessary or downright goofy devices. Are we in the Age of Wisdom or the Age of Foolishness? There is little doubt that the Internet has had a huge impact on our daily life. Some have evenRead More

As data rates increase, designers are encountering performance limits, signal loss, and higher costs, and congested PCBs. High-speed internal cable assemblies offer a potential solution. By I-PEX Connectors The increased complexity of enterprise computing equipment is one of the many factors that make today’s computing environment challenging. These complexity issues are further exacerbated by theRead More

Heat, shock, vibration, and radiation are all in a day’s work for the special components that explore worlds beyond our own. by Ann R. Thryft The most mission-critical of military/aerospace systems are the ones that go into space, where they encounter the toughest environments. Mil/aero systems must be tough enough on Earth to withstand theRead More

In critical mil/aero applications, a connector’s dependability begins where the pins and sockets meet: the contact system. By Robert Kleinschmidt, Senior Vice President, Air & Defense Business Unit, AirBorn, Inc. Many electronic systems in the military, defense, and aeronautics industries are designed to excel in some of the harshest environments imaginable. Deep-sea systems must endureRead More

For more than a century, the UL mark has helped inspire confidence in a product’s safety and quality. For UL, facilitating the standards development process, developing standards and certifying to those standards helps ensure that quality starts at the component level. UL is a premier global independent safety science company that has championed progress forRead More

The US has implemented another round of tariffs against China. The electronics industry is caught in the middle. We have now reached the next phase of the Trump administration’s planned tariffs on imports from China. On September 24, a third round of tariffs went into effect on midnight. This round includes some products used byRead More

Driverless golf carts and neighborhood electric vehicles may become mainstream well before autonomous cars become common. By Terry Costlow Golf cart suppliers have beat the auto industry in the race to electric power. Now they’re striving to make big inroads into the autonomous vehicle field. The challenges and benefits of using both electrified powertrains andRead More

It’s easy to overlook backshells, but they play a critical role in protecting connectors, cables, and overall system reliability. Mike Kahn, Director of Marketing, NorComp Connector reliability is essential to the performance of electronic systems in transportation applications. Off-highway equipment, long-haul freighters, bus and rail systems, and all other modes depend on critical systems includingRead More

The results are in for the 2018 Bishop & Associates US Customer Satisfaction Survey of the Electronic Connector Industry. In this issue, we reveal the top 10 connector suppliers ranked by level of customer satisfaction with product quality and problem handling. View survey results from all survey years. Bishop & Associates recently completed its biennial USRead More