Internal cabled interconnects reach speeds of up to 25Gbps

This new technology simplifies design and helps lower overall costs by eliminating the need for re-timers and costlier, lower-loss Printed Circuit Board (PCB) materials, while reaching speeds up to 25 gigabits per second (Gbps) with the use of TE high speed cable.

“Our new Sliver internal cabled interconnect system has been enthusiastically adopted by our initial customers as a solution to data rate increase challenges,” said Melissa Knox, Product Manager of Data and Devices at TE Connectivity. “It is a flexible, robust, and cost effective connector and cable assembly solution providing improved performance and extended reach while also saving space and lowering design costs for a range of data rate signals within data networking applications.”

As rates increase for data communications equipment like servers, switching, routers, and storage, the standard PCB material has too much uncontrolled signal loss to allow for clean transmission of these signals through PCB traces. TE's Sliver interconnect product line provides an inexpensive, robust solution with a small, high-density connector and cable assembly that routes high-speed signals from the microprocessors to other locations (e.g. to other boards, to other microprocessor chips, to the backplane, to I/O).

TE’s Sliver products can be used across many applications, data rates, and protocols (including PCI express, SAS and Ethernet). There are several interconnectivity options, including chip-to-chip, board-to-board, chip-to-front panel I/O and high-speed card edge. It is a scalable platform that can be extended in increments of eight differential signal pairs for convenient and efficient pin configurations.

The Sliver internal cabled interconnects also solve the design challenge of making products as small as possible with a 0.6mm contact pitch. This slim design also has a robust metal housing on the connector cage to help withstand cable pull, and an active latch on the housing provides additional connection security.