Electrical connectors – With guiding means for mating of coupling part – For guiding side of movable panel – e.g. – circuit board
Reexamination Certificate
2001-10-12
2004-03-02
Paumen, Gary (Department: 2833)
Electrical connectors
With guiding means for mating of coupling part
For guiding side of movable panel, e.g., circuit board
C439S326000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06699061
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a card connector mounted on electronic devices, such as cellular phones, telephones, PDAs (personal digital assistants), portable audio devices and cameras, and more specifically to a structure that prevents contact terminals of the card connector from being deformed by a wrong insertion of a card.
BACKGROUND ART
In electronic devices such as cellular phones, telephones, PDAs and digital cameras, a variety of functions are added by inserting an IC card with a built-in CPU or memory IC, such as a SIM (subscriber identity module) card, an MMC (multimedia card), and an SD (secure digital or super density) card.
In a connector for removably accommodating such an IC card, a plurality of contact terminals made from a metal leaf spring are provided in a connector housing to make contact with a plurality of contact pads formed on the front or back surface of the inserted IC card to electrically connect the IC card to the electronic device mounting that connector. The contact pads of the IC card include a power supply pad connected to a power supply line and a plurality of signal pads for transferring various signals. These contact pads are connected via the contact terminals of the card connector to a power supply circuit and various signal processing circuits in the electronic device.
The SD card, one kind of the IC card, is shaped as shown in
FIGS. 8A
to
8
C and FIG.
9
.
FIG. 8
shows a top view of the card and
FIG. 9
shows a bottom view of the card.
In these figures, the SD card
20
has an upper body portion
21
with a thickness of a. At the front right corner the card has a virtually triangular cut-off corner portion
22
for preventing its erroneous insertion. On the back surface side of the upper body portion
21
is formed a lower body portion
23
having a thickness slightly narrower than that of the upper body portion
21
and a predetermined thickness b. That is, the card
20
has stepped portions
24
formed along its both side edges.
On the front part of the lower body portion
23
a plurality of recessed portions (grooves)
26
are formed, separated from each other by a plurality of partition walls
25
. On the bottom surface of these recessed portions
26
are arranged contact pads
27
connected to an IC circuit inside the card. The depth of each recessed portion
26
is almost equal to the height of the lower body portion
23
and therefore the surface of each contact pad
27
is spaced from the front surface of the upper body portion
21
by a distance equal to the thickness a of the upper body portion
21
. On a side surface of the card
20
is arranged a slidable write protect button
28
which is slid to one position to protect the card
20
against being written with data.
As an example of connector for accommodating a double-height structure card, such as the SD card described above, the applicant of this invention filed Japanese Patent Application No. 11-316110 entitled “Card Connector Structure” on Nov. 5, 1999.
According to the invention of this application, in order to provide a connector that can be used commonly for a double-height thick card
20
such as the SD card above and for a single-height thin card (e.g., MMC card) having almost the same thickness a as the upper body portion
21
of the SD card
20
, both side wall portions of a connector housing are formed with a pair of guide grooves that support and guide both side edges of the upper body portion
21
of the double-height thick card
20
and both side edges of the single-height thin card as they are inserted or withdrawn. These guide grooves support those portions of the two cards which have the same thicknesses a. In this connector, when each of these cards is supported in the connector, the distance from the contact pads
27
of one card to the contact terminals of the connector is equal to the distance from the contact pads
27
of the other card to the contact terminals, so that the both cards engage the contact terminals with the same contact pressures.
FIGS. 10A and 10B
show the double-height thick card
20
normally inserted into connector
100
of this invention. A base plate of a connector housing
101
has a plurality of contact terminals
102
arranged parallelly thereon. The connector housing
101
has an abutment wall
103
against which the inserted IC card
20
is pushed. At one corner of the abutment wall
103
there is formed a protruding corner wall
104
with which the cut-off corner portion
22
of the IC card
20
engages. In both side wall portions, the above-described guide grooves
105
are formed. These paired guide grooves
105
support both edges of the upper body portion
21
of the card
20
.
In FIG.
10
A and
FIG. 10B
the card
20
is shown to be normally inserted, so contact portions
102
a
of the contact terminals
102
of the connector
100
engage with the contact pads
27
of the SD card
20
with an appropriate pressure.
In the connector above, when the card
20
is wrongly inserted back to front as shown in FIG.
11
A and
FIG. 11B
, the card
20
can be inserted into the connector
100
until its rear end wall
29
abuts against the corner wall
104
.
When the card is inserted back to front to such a position, however, the contact portions
102
a
of the contact terminals
102
are in an overloaded state where they are pressed excessively by the bottom surface of the card
20
. In this state, the contact terminals
102
are deformed excessively beyond the elastic limit and undergo plastic deformations.
The present invention has been accomplished to overcome this problem. It is therefore an object of this invention to solve the problem by providing a card connector which, if the card is wrongly inserted back to front, can reliably prevent excess deformations of the contact terminals.
DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION
According to one aspect, the present invention provides a card connector for holding a card in a connector housing in such a way that contact pads of the card engage with contact terminals arranged in the connector housing, wherein the card has a plurality of recessed portions formed parallelly in a front part thereof with the contact pads arranged in the recessed portions, the card connector comprising: a pair of guide grooves formed in the connector housing to support and guide both side edges of the card; and a raised portion formed in the connector housing to fit into one of the plurality of recessed portions of the card when the card is inserted into the connector.
With this invention, when the card is inserted normally, the raised portion fits into one of the recessed portions in the card for the contact pads. At this time, the contact pads of the card are brought into contact with the contact terminals of the connector without interference from the raised portion.
When the card is wrongly inserted back to front, on the other hand, the raised portion works as a stopper and stops the card being inserted before the contact terminals are displaced by the card in excess of their elastic limit.
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Abe Kiyoshi
Sato Shigeru
Torii Takashi
Finnegan Henderson Farabow Garrett & Dunner LLP
Hammond Briggitte R.
Paumen Gary
Yamaichi Electronics Co. Ltd.
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