Electrical connector assembly

Electrical connectors – Including or for use with tape cable – With mating connection region formed by bared cable

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Details

439 79, 439108, H01R 907

Patent

active

059678313

DESCRIPTION:

BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to an electrical connector, more specifically to a high density electrical connector such as a PC card connector that uses a flexible circuit for interconnecting the contact of the PC connector to another connector mounted on a circuit hoard.


BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Advances in electronic devices including microprocessors have created a large market for compact electronic apparatus using memory or PC cards, hard disk drives (HDDs), etc. A docking connector or a memory card connector is used in such electronic apparati. The docking connector is used to interconnect another similar electronic apparatus for creating a network and also to connect peripheral equipment such as a submemory apparatus. A memory card connector receives one or more memory card or an HDD for electrical connection thereto.
Recently, needs have arisen for card type devices known a PC cards for expansion or additional performance of compact electronic equipment such as notebook personal computers. Such PC cards are normally received in a PC card connector installed in a compact electronic equipment to provide added memory capacity or interfacing with external devices such as peripheral equipment. Typically, PC card connectors have dual stacked connector mating portions to permit reception of three types of PC cards, i.e., Type I, Type II and Type III.
These docking connectors and PC or memory card connectors include a plurality of contacts often more than one hundred disposed in a matrix having a plurality of rows. Such contacts are bent at right angles or in an L-shape with respect to the connector and are soldered to respective conductive paths or traces on a main PC board. One example of such memory card connector is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,324,204. In this particular example, four rows of contacts are bent in a staggered relationship to be connected to the main PC board in eight rows.
Typical examples of such connectors also are disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication, No. 6-332573 and Japanese UM Publication No. 6-56992. The former connector has contacts aligned in a connector housing and bent at substantially right angles at the rear position to be connected to a rain circuit board. In the latter connector, contacts of dual stacked connectors extend at their rear positions toward each other, i.e., toward the center position to be connected to an auxiliary circuit board at the center position, thereby interconnecting the auxiliary and main circuit boards by the board-to-board connector.
Unfortunately, as electronic equipment becomes more compact, a higher density of contacts is required. The individual contacts, therefore, have smaller dimensions and pitch, which makes it difficult to form reliable connections with a main circuit board using a connector having relatively long solder tines of the contacts of the former connector. Although the latter connector is effective to realize relatively fine pitch connections, the connector requires a larger number of components, thus making it more difficult to manufacture and more expensive.
Moreover, a standard to form signal and ground (SG) of PC card connectors has been added recently. One object is to isolate signals to be transmitted through one connector from those transmitted through another connector, thereby preventing noise due to cross talk. Unfortunately, however, such noise protection is not always sufficient in conventional connectors.
Additionally, in the above conventional connectors, the connection or mounting location of the connector or its contacts on a main circuit board is required to be predetermined, thereby restricting the design of the main circuit board and precise manufacture of conductive through hole patterns, etc. with small tolerances. It is, therefore, desirable to provide flexibility in connection or mounting.
Using a flexible circuit (FC) for interconnecting circuits on a substrate such as a small-size printed circuit board (PCB) and high-density-mounted electronic equipment is known in the

REFERENCES:
patent: 3158421 (1964-11-01), Hasenauer, Jr.
patent: 3337834 (1967-08-01), Godwin et al.
patent: 3923364 (1975-12-01), Shapiro et al.
patent: 4749371 (1988-06-01), Hirai et al.
patent: 5414220 (1995-05-01), Hanato et al.

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