BRAIDED ELECTRICAL CONTACT ELEMENT BASED HIGH PERFORMANCE CONNECTORS Open Access

Braided Electrical Contact Element or BeCe is high performance mechanically and electrically. It can be used in a variety of connector and interposer applications. This presentation discusses the use of BeCe in board-to-board, flex-to-board, and equivalent connectors. BeCe is typically braided with 6–12 wires and has OD 0.125–0.9 mm and height 1–4 mm. Because of the high elastic compliance, 25–30 % of the uncompressed height, a BeCe height of 2 mm is adequate for a array of 2000 I/O. The contact pitch has a range 0.2–2.0 mm. The average contact force for an array is 5–20 gr. per I/O. The contact resistance of 1 mm BeCe is 5–20 milliohm depending on the wire used. If copper plated stainless steel wire is used the service temperature can be > 250 C. Typical board-to-board connector is constructed by inserting BeCe array in a carrier for adhesive retention. Alternately, the BeCe is cut into two equal heights and each segment is solder attached to the top and bottom side of the FR-4 carrier. Only both ends of BeCe are exposed the remainder part of BeCe is inserted in the spacer above and below the carrier for hard sop to avoid overloading and for buckling prevention. When electrically connecting two parts it can be done with externally applied contact force and with both ends mating in a demuntable way. Alternatively, the mounting can be done in a self-assembled mode, which will be detailed in the presentation. In the presentation the design, construction, and performance of board-to-board connector will be discussed in detail with performance data.