As the way things are going today and in the future, more and more functionality is being squeezed into smaller spaces. Every industry, including automotive, consumer products, data centers, and medical devices, is being impacted by the trend toward miniaturization.
Miniaturization is about integrating increasingly complex features and functions into ever-shrinking device spaces.
Designers are “thinking big, but starting small” to redefine connectivity innovations to meet future communications, power, and I/O processing needs.
Molex, a global electronics industry leader and connectivity innovator, recently released a new report on product design miniaturization. To meet the increasing demand for lighter and smaller products across industries, the report, "Mastering Miniaturization, Expert Perspectives," provides insights into how to balance the cost and space requirements of densely packaged electronic products.
"Design engineers must 'think big and start small,' especially when reliably using high-speed connectors on printed circuits," said Brian Hauge, senior vice president and president of consumer and commercial solutions at Molex. This requires cross-disciplinary expertise in electrical, mechanical and manufacturing process engineering to deliver high-speed microelectronic interconnects that are commercially viable without sacrificing long-term reliability. Molex's industry-leading miniaturization capabilities provide the smallest, densest and most advanced connectivity solutions available today."
As miniaturization continues to penetrate every industry and application category, product designers must balance conflicting factors, including the following:
1. Power and thermal management; 2. Signal integrity and integration; 3. Component and system integration; 4. Mechanical stress and manufacturability; 5. Precision, batch manufacturing and cost
Many experts from different industries have also revealed that miniaturization has a profound impact on factories, data centers, automobiles, medical wearable devices, smartphones, 5G development, etc.
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Miniaturization defines innovation
Molex's range of innovative solutions highlights how miniaturization is redefining innovation by improving the size, weight and location of components and connectors, including:
1. Four-row board-to-board connector. The world's smallest board-to-board connector uses a staggered circuit layout, which saves 30% of space and can support smartphones, smart watches, wearable devices, game consoles and augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR) devices.
2. Next-generation vehicle architecture. Molex is promoting the development of a partitioned architecture that replaces traditional wiring harnesses with regional gateways that use fewer, smaller, more powerful and more rugged connectors to partition vehicle functions by location.
3. Flex Board RF Millimeter Wave 5G25 Connector. This micro connector combines compact size and excellent signal integrity, and takes performance to the next level to meet the needs of 5G millimeter wave applications up to 25GHz.
4. NearStack On-Silicon Substrate (OTS) Connector This direct-to-chip connector solution places the NearStack connector directly on the chip substrate package, enabling high-density interconnects that support long-distance transmission of 112 Gbps.
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Molex Market Observation
Kyle Glissman, global product manager, Molex Transportation Solutions: “The ability to reduce the terminal pitch to 0.5 mm has a compounding effect because the layout is tighter and we can fit more content and functions in a smaller space.
Kenji Kijima, director, Molex Consumer and Commercial Solutions: “For 5G, you need to install more antenna modules and RF functional devices inside the phone, as well as larger batteries for more power, so we have to reduce the size of other components, which puts pressure on us.”
Brett Landrum, vice president of global innovation and design, Phillips-Medisize, a Molex company: “Miniaturization is promoting usability while taking the design of wearable device connectivity to a new level.
Gus Panella, director of interconnect technology, Molex Specialty Data Solutions: “Application needs are driving I/O device devices to be more densely packed, which in turn stretches the physical limits of PCB materials, which leads us to move connectors to silicon substrates.
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