IC card connector assembly

Details IC card connector assembly IC card connector assembly

1999-10-28

2001-01-30

Paumen, Gary F. (Department: 2833)

Electrical connectors

With supporting means for coupling part

Supporting plural, independent coupling parts

Reexamination Certificate

active

06179652

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an IC (Integrated Circuit) card connector assembly, and particularly to a stacked IC card connector assembly having an improved lower header and an improved rear socket for facilitating arrangement of contact tails of contacts of the connectors in a rear socket.
2. Description of the Prior Art
An IC card connector is commonly adopted within a notebook computer for providing electrical connection between an IC card and the notebook computer whereby the IC card can be read or written on. IC card connectors are often stacked and mounted on a printed circuit board (PCB) by a rear socket, such as the disclosures of Taiwan Patent Application Nos. 83218076 and 84112508, and U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,636,999 and 5,688,130. The assembly of the connectors with the rear socket faces some problems, as explained below.
Referring to
FIG. 1
, a conventional IC card connector assembly
100
comprises a header
102
, two rows of top contacts
104
received in a top portion of the header
102
, two rows of bottom contacts
106
received in a bottom portion of the header
102
. A rear socket
108
is mounted on a printed circuit board to electrically connect with the connector assembly
100
, thereby achieving an electrical connection between the assembly
100
and the printed circuit board. Each top contact
104
comprises a top contact tail
112
and each bottom contact
106
comprises a bottom contact tail
114
. Before the contact tails
114
,
116
are inserted into the rear socket
108
, if the top and bottom contact tails
114
,
116
are deflected from a vertical position, they will be very difficult to be inserted into the rear socket
108
to achieve a proper electrical connection therewith, because the tails
114
,
116
can only be assembled with the rear socket
108
in a vertical direction. Hence, an improved mechanism is required.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, a purpose of the present invention is to provide an IC card connector assembly comprising stacked upper and lower connectors, and a rear socket being deflectably attaching to the upper and lower connectors for facilitating arrangement of contact tails thereof in the rear socket.
To fulfill the above purpose, an IC card connector assembly comprises stacked upper and lower connectors and a rear socket attached thereto. The upper connector includes an upper header and a row of upper contacts retained in the upper header. The upper header comprises a pair of upper sidebars each defining an upper recess in an outside face thereof. The lower connector includes a lower header and a row of lower contacts retained in the lower header. The lower header comprises a pair of lower sidebars each defining a lower recess in an outside face thereof. The rear socket includes an elongate base and a pair of arms upwardly extending from opposite ends of the base. The base defines two rows of cavities. In a semi-assembled state, the arms are received in the lower recesses with a gap defined therebween thereby, the rear socket being deflectably toward the lower contacts for facilitating arrangement of the lower contacts in one row of the two rows of cavities of the rear socket.


REFERENCES:
patent: 5286207 (1994-02-01), McHugh
patent: 5636999 (1997-06-01), Hirai et al.
patent: 5688130 (1997-11-01), Huang
patent: 5775923 (1998-07-01), Tomioka

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