Electrical connector with grounding system
OwnerTimothy B. Billman, John H. Weaver JR.inventors
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An electrical connector comprising a housing and electrical contacts connected to the housing. The electrical contacts comprise paired signal and ground contacts, and additional ground contacts. The additional ground contacts are arranged relative to the paired contacts to divide the paired contacts into subdivisions of equal numbers of the paired contacts. The subdivisions and the additional ground contacts are arranged to allow for multiple relative orientation connections of a mating connector.
Claims28
An electrical connector comprising:
- a housing;
- and
- electrical contacts connected to the housing, the electrical contacts comprising paired signal and ground contacts, and additional ground contacts,
- wherein the additional ground contacts are arranged relative to the paired contacts to divide the paired contacts into subdivisions of equal numbers of the paired contacts.
An electrical connector comprising:
- subassembly wafers, at least two of the wafers comprising a housing, paired signal and ground contacts, and an additional ground contact in a general center of a connection area for the paired contacts;
- and
- a ground plane member located between at least two of the wafers, the ground plane member having contact areas located between at least some of the paired contacts of one of the at least two wafers and at least some of the paired contacts of the other one of the at least two wafers.
An electrical connector comprising:
- paired signal and ground contacts;
- additional ground contacts located between at least some of the paired contacts;
- and
- a housing having first contact receiving areas with the paired contacts located therein and second contact receiving areas with the additional ground contacts located therein, wherein at least one of the second contact receiving areas does not contain an additional ground contact such that two of the paired contacts on opposite sides of the at least one second contact receiving area form a differential pair of contacts for high speed differential pair signal transmission.
A method of manufacturing an electrical connector comprising steps of:
- providing a housing having first contact receiving areas and second contact receiving areas,
- positioning paired signal and ground contacts in the first contact receiving areas;
- and
- selectively positioning additional ground contacts in the second contact receiving areas,
- wherein at least one of the second contact receiving areas does not have an additional ground contact located therein such that two of the paired signal contacts, each on opposite sides of the at least one second contact receiving area, form a differential pair of high speed signal transmission contacts.
An electrical connector comprising:
- a first subcomponent wafer assembly comprising a first housing and single ended signal and respectively paired ground contacts connected to the first housing;
- and
- a second subcomponent wafer assembly connected to the first subcomponent wafer assembly, the second subcomponent wafer assembly comprising a second housing and, connected to the second housing, pairs of differential pair signal Contacts and respectively associated ground contacts for each signal contact.
A method of manufacturing electrical connectors having both single ended signal contacts and differential pair signal contacts comprising steps of:
- providing at least two first pairs of signal contacts and respective ground contacts for each of the first pairs of signal contacts;
- providing at least two second pairs of signal contacts and respective ground contacts for each of the second pairs of signal contacts;
- and
- selectively locating additional ground contacts between two of the first pairs of signal contacts,
- wherein at least two of the second pairs of signal contacts do not have the additional ground contacts therebetween such that the signal contacts of the two second pairs form a differential pair of high speed signal transmission signal contacts and signal contacts of the two first pairs form single ended signal transmission signal contacts.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.