THE FIRST OPERATIONAL AMC CONNECTOR
YAMAICHI ELECTRONICS RECENTLY INTRODUCED THE NEW CN074 CONNECTOR FAMILY, DESIGNED FOR USE WITH THE HIGH-SPEED, HOT SWAPPABLE ADVANCED MEZZANINE CARD (AMC).
The new AMC module represents the industry's next generation mezzanine card (also referred to as daughter card), supporting high-speed data transfer rates (up to 12.5 Gbit/sec) and, among others, the new AdvancedTCAŽ standard. The new benchmark technology was developed by the PICMG (
http://www.picmg.org
), a 600-member strong consortium of computer industry manufacturers. As a PICMG executive member, Yamaichi played a key role in developing the AMC module specifications and the related connector technology. Yamaichi is also the first company to launch a fully operational AMC connector on the market.
By way of explanation: The AMC is a modular add-on card that significantly extends the functionality of a carrier board. The latter may be a relatively simple passive board with "minimal intelligence," or a high-performance single board computer. AMC modules are thus well suited for a wide variety of applications, and industry experts expect the market for this new technology to grow rapidly.
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The AMC module is designed to lie parallel to the carrier board and connects to the board using a Yamaichi CN074 "Z-pluggable" connector.
The design is suitable for use with PCI Express, Advanced Switching, Serial RapidIO and Gigabit Ethernet interfaces.
AMC modules are available in several different sizes, with 2 variants each for width and depth. All combinations of half-height and full-height with single-wide and double-wide are therefore possible.
The CN074 is a so-called "Z-pluggable" connector, with card edge connections for mating to the mezzanine card (AMC) and a compression connector with added screws for the carrier board. The connector contacts are arranged into sections for power, low speed signals, and very high speed LVDS signals. To accommodate connecting the various AMC module types, four different connector versions in three case sizes having 85 contacts per row are available. Thus, the different combinations can provide 85, 170, or 340 contacts.
The CN074 connector uses a flexible board that was also developed by Yamaichi Electronics, and which goes by the product name YFLEX. The YFLEX board uses LCP as the base substrate in combination with B˛IT interconnection technology. Yamaichi has many years of experience in implementing this technology for differential pair matched impedance designs within the successful YFB series. As a result, the new CN074 series can also be counted on to provide high speed data transfer and outstanding electrical properties.
Yamaichi specifically developed the new AMC connectors to meet all carrier board quality requirements with respect to reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS). As such, the design complies with the GR-1217-CORE standard.
Rene Haller, EXT 36
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