Pure tin plating has been almost universally adopted, but the looming expiration of a critical exemption is poised to bite manufacturers of screw machined contacts. Bob Hult examines the continuing impact of RoHS. Just when you thought the connector industry had bit the bullet and removed all lead from its products, the looming expiration ofRead More

The Photonic Systems Manufacturing Consortium enlists participation in a 10-year roadmap for the development and manufacturing capabilities needed to produce low-cost, high-volume, integrated photonic systems. The Photonic Systems Manufacturing Consortium (PSMC), a collaboration of the International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (iNEMI) and the MIT Microphotonics Center, is enlisting the participation of key industry stakeholders in its development ofRead More

The first standard for 40G structured cabling, IEEE 802.3ba, only covered fiber optics and short-reach copper twinax. Now an active task force is developing a copper twisted-pair standard. Here is a look at the technology and potential market for copper 40-Gigabit Ethernet. While the TIA touts its premise wiring standards as “application non-specific,” the industryRead More

Using multi-contact coax connectors and VITA standards can preserve space on the front panel and facilitate insertion/removal of cards for installation, repair, and upgrades. A growing trend in electronic packaging for military and aerospace applications is the availability of multi-contact coaxial interconnects. A key driver is the desire to provide RF disconnect capability at the backplane/daughtercardRead More

With no medical industry standards for cable, the industry adopts voluntary specifications to ensure patient safety. The medical device industry tolerates a much smaller margin of error than most other industries. Medical devices are highly precise and sensitive instruments. As such, medical interconnect cable, and more significantly, the material used in such apparatuses, must beRead More