TECHNICAL FIELD

This disclosure relates to the field of input/output (IO) connectors, more specifically to IO connectors suitable for use in high data rate applications.

DESCRIPTION OF RELATED ART

Input/output (IO) connectors are designed to support high data rates and a number of improvements have been developed to help provide data rates that reach 25 Gbps and even higher. In order to support consumer needs and desires, however, many companies are looking at ways to support higher data rates. As a result, development work into supporting 50 Gbps using NRZ encoding and 100 Gbps using PAM4encoding are underway. These increases will pose significant problems for existing manufacturing techniques, however, as conventional circuit boards cannot readily support 25 GHz signals. Thus new architectures and methods will be required.

Another method to support increased data rates has been to try to increase the number of ports. One way to increase the number of ports is to shrink the size of the connector. For example, it is common for many standard connectors to be designed to work on a 0.8 mm or 0.75 mm pitch and recently a connector standard that support 0.5 mm has been approved (the OCULINK connector). While shrinking the connector size works well for clean sheet designs and is effect at supporting very high density at the front of rack, smaller connectors are more challenging to use for optical connector designs as the very small size makes it challenging to dissipate sufficient thermal energy. They also tend to use smaller sized conductors, which makes it difficult to support more than 2 or 3 meter length cables. In addition, for people that wish to have some level of backward compatibility, the new smaller connector size poses potential issues. As a result, certain individuals would appreciate further improvements in connector technology.

SUMMARY

A connector is disclosed that includes a set of wafers formed of terminals supported by an insulative frame. The set of wafers can be positioned in a cage without a housing. Card slots members are aligned with contacts of the terminals. In an embodiment a connector can include a wafer that supports two rows of terminals on both sides of a card slot and the connector can be arranged to have a press-fit tails.

