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Ring
In the New Smartphones
By
Alice Tanghe, ConnectorSupplier.com
Contributions from I-Pex, Molex, and Tyco Electronics
Getting out of my
home office to attend the recent EDS in Vegas was not a bad thing. Being
immersed in the energy and the excitement of an industry once again
experiencing growth is good for anyone, but especially for those of us
that only have daily in-person contact with a German wire-haired
pointer, a peek-a-poo, and an overworked husband. It’s also times like
this, when I get out to meet with cutting-edge businesspeople, that I
realize maybe I should update my communication tools. As I sheepishly
removed my cell phone from my business tote, I noticed that it was badly
beaten up and more than slightly out of date. What an antique I felt
like, carrying this clunker amid a sea of newfangled Smartphones,
including the Droid, Blackberry, and iPhone. While some of the attendees
I met with had just purchased their phones and were experiencing the
joys and frustrations of a new toy, others had decided to return
to using a regular cell phone and recapture the relative peace of
working at a “normal” pace; perhaps we don’t all need to be alerted to
all business needs in real time.
No matter where you’re at with your communication needs, you can’t help
but be aware of some of the new products available in the telecom area.
If you’re an OEM designing these phones, you must feel the anticipation
of contributing product to a world-changing phenomena. What new
connector designs are manufacturers creating? We asked a few to let us
know what they’re doing to meet your needs. Our questions were:
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How is the Long
Term Evolution (LTE) of cell phone systems, also called 4G,
affecting the design of connectors in Smartphones today, and in the
future?
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What are the most
commonly used connectors in Smartphones today?
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How have
connectors in Smartphones changed over the past five years?
Each of the companies
weighed in on these questions, telling us how their products are a part
of Smartphones today—and the Smartphones we’ll see in the future.
Smartphone and I-PEX
The
mobile phone is no longer just for talking, as evidenced by Smartphones’
growing popularity worldwide. Mobile phone sales have been decreasing
(30 percent decline over the last year); on the other hand, Smartphone
sales have been rapidly increasing. (more than 150 percent over the last
year). The Smartphone’s popularity points are access to large amounts of
data, larger and higher definition displays, and multiple high-speed
wireless connections, which the traditional mobile phone does not offer.
All set makers are focusing on Smartphone development.
 The
Smartphone requires new connector technologies, such as the MCX (micro
coax) connector for high-speed serial transmission and wireless RF
antenna connection. Small size and highly reliable electric performance
are required for the new connectors.
I-PEX is the leading supplier of the MCX connectors to the Smartphone
market. I-PEX’s MHF4 is a popular RF coaxial connector featuring a low
1.2mm mated height and excellent electrical performance for WiFi, GPS,
and 3G antennas inside the Smartphone. It’s accepted for the iPhone and
T-01A (Toshiba’s Smartphone). The coaxial cable is terminated by i-Fit®
technology, which provides stable high frequency performance with a
simple one-step wire termination.
I-PEX also offers multi-conductor MCX connectors for display to main
board applications. Their extremely low profile vertical mating types
CABLINE®-UA ll (0.3mm pitch) and CABLINE®-UB ll
(0.4mm pitch) feature W-Point contacts for high reliability mating, and
multi-GND point shield connections for high data transmission and
excellent EMI performance.
The world’s lowest-profile MCX connectors are now available from I-PEX.
CABLINE®-UX (0.25mm pitch/vertical mating type) and CABLINE®-CX
(0.25mm pitch/horizontal mating type) both offer multi-GND point shield
connections for high data transmissions and excellent EMI performance,
contributing to making smaller and slimmer Smartphones. These I-PEX
connectors will be adopted in the future for Smartphone applications.
The Molex Perspective
 In
general, the need for more and faster mobile data is driving changes at
the networks as well as within the handsets. This requires faster
networks to manage bandwidth more effectively, hence LTE. LTE will not
drive this change, but the need for faster data will. In order to manage
this increase of data, the data speeds within the handsets will
increase, introducing new challenges such as EMI, crosstalk, and even
heat management. These challenges will drive changes within the
interconnect. We will see shielding becoming increasingly important. At
first, we will also see increasing pin counts, and later, with the
introduction of serial busses, this will drop again. We will also see
the need for fiber, as coax can no longer manage the speeds. As imaging
is also an important feature, for both photo and video, these devices
need to be able to connect simply to entertainment systems. This will
fuel the need for external IOs, such as uHDMI.
Besides the basic phone interconnects, such as battery, SIM, and uUSB,
Smartphones have MicroSD connectors for expandable memory, camera
sockets, board-to-board connectors, flexible printed circuit (FPC)
connectors, and combo card connectors (SIM+uSD).
 Five
years ago, most Smartphone makers used proprietary IO interfaces. By
doing this, they could “control” their accessory sales. At present, most
OEMs use industry standard IOs, which allow Smartphones to simply
connect to home entertainment systems and computers. With the increasing
number of chargers out in the field, there is now, of course,
legislation to enforce standard charging interfaces. On the inside of
these devices, we have seen a miniaturization, reducing connector pitch
and height, to use the available real estate more effectively. As
products become narrower, device makers are worried about further
reducing pitch, because this will affect solderability within their
processes. We also see more shielding issues. With the increasing data
speeds and the amount of antennas within a phone, interference is
becoming a real issue and is affecting data integrity. External
connectors can enhance the industrial design, or at minimum, not disturb
it. We therefore see color becoming more of a need: black IOs will not
disturb the external appeal of a dark-colored device, for instance. We
also see the need for light effects enhancing the function of the
external connectors, i.e. RED illuminated DC jacks when the device needs
to be charged.
Tyco Electronics
The
direct effect of LTE/4G is on the bandwidth or the operating speed
capability of some of the key areas of an interconnect (I/O and
display), or the capability to move large chunks of data quickly without
restriction. The secondary effect is dealing with the result—unwanted
noise (EMI and RFI). At Tyco Electronics, we have noticed this mostly on
the LCD display interconnect, where historically flex was used as the
bridge and standard board-to-board or flex-to-board interconnects were
used. Grounding for noise and ESD has become more prevalent. A phone
today may use more than 19 ground spring fingers to control ESD, and
other grounding solutions may also be incorporated into the phone.
The most common connectors Tyco Electronics designs into Smartphones
are:
SIM Card—Used in all
GSM cell phones (not used in many CDMA types)
Memory—uSD Standard Interconnects are used in a wide variety of
applications (external access, push-push, push-pull, combo connectors
with SIM, etc.) for extra memory for pictures and transfer of data
Fine pitch board-board 0.40mm or 0.30mm pitch with height of 1.00mm or
less, used mainly as interconnect bridge for flex (display, or routing
multiple components—vibe motor, speaker, camera, etc.)
Ground Spring Fingers—above
Pogo Pin—Interconnect for antenna to board or ESD grounding
Switching COAX—test points for RF routing/antenna (one for each antenna:
data, Bluetooth, GPS)
Changes in Interconnects
Miniaturization will continue to be a key trend in interconnect design.
Even with the dramatic changes seen in the last few years, the push is
still to go somewhat lower (component/chip height), and less PC board
space is critical. We’ll also see further integration, a single
connector doing more than being a connector, such as an integrated uUSB
(IO Interconnect) with circuit protection. Customization will continue
to be important to serve customers in diverse industries. Even standard
Industry products are still customized for “platforms.”
An example is the uUSB
I/O with mid-mount height from the board, and with reverse face with
respect to the board.
Managing volume and time-to-market issues will be critical as well.
There is quite a bit of pressure to reach maximum volumes quickly from
the launch date; even so, flexibility to react quickly to situations
that require change will be part of the formula companies will need to
master to be successful.
Alice Tanghe is the
editor of ConnectorSupplier.com and CableAssemblySupplier.com. Alice can
be reached at 763.559.3633 or
atanghe@comcast.net.
ConnectorSupplier.com will expand its 2010 coverage of the telecom
market in June, August, and October, and we’d like your input on this
growing market. Beginning with the June 15, 2010 issue, analyst Dave
Pheteplace will cover the telecom market for ConnectorSupplier.com and
Bishop & Associates Inc. He will continue to handle the cable assembly
market as well. Dave can be reached at or 619.863.4214 or dpheteplace@bishopinc.com.
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