Smiths adds EMI screening to connector for satellites

It interfaces between the PCB mounted receptacle and the enclosure panel or bulkhead to minimises the risk of electrical interference flowing from external sources into the enclosure, and vise versa.

The EMI receptacle has a gold plated aluminium body that is assembled into the product along with the EMI gasket during production at Smiths, while the standard (non-EMI) version gets a composite body. The EMI gasket can also be bought separately as a spare.

With the EMI option, Smiths told Electronics Weekly, receptacle-bulkhead shielding effectiveness is -65dB up to 10GHz. Without, the figure is likely to be ~ -60dB to -40dB.

“NXS connector with EMI Flange is equipped with the contact technology to withstand data up to 50Gbit/s per channel, including extreme levels of vibration, shock, and climatic testing above 2,100G. Each ‘quadrax’ module [left] contains two dual twinax at 100Ω each pair, and it is blind-mateable, hot-pluggable, with low mating forces and low out-gassing,” according to the company.

The NXS receptacle is solder-less, using spring probes mating with gold plated target pads on the PCB for both differential pair contacts and ground contacts. For reference: 4 module connector (above) is ~30mm long, 12 module connector (below) is 60mm long. Connectors with fewer ways are available.

Built to space standards, they are qualified to standards including: ESCC 3401, ESCC 3402, ECSS-Q-ST-70C, ECSS-Q-ST-70-02, ECSS-Q-ST-70-08C, ECSS-Q-ST-70-38C and ECSS-Q-70-71.

Smiths Interconnect has 21 sales, R&D and manufacturing locations across 12 countries, including Canada, US, Mexico, Costa Rica, France, Germany, Italy, UK, Tunisia, India, China and Singapore.