Press release

Etters, PA
November 15, 2007
IMMEDIATE RELEASE, FC580

FCI's new ZipLineTM provides highest density high-speed, press-fit connectors

ETTERS, PA (November 15, 2007) – FCI, a leading developer of connectors and interconnect systems, has developed the ZipLine™ connector system in response to customer demand for increased signal density. Designed for both backplane and orthogonal applications, the connectors can reach speeds of 12.5Gb/s with up to 101 signal pairs per linear inch at 1.5mm column pitch, making ZipLine the highest density connector available with press-fit termination.

“Just about every customer we visited in the last year—chip designers, reference design houses, system designers—agreed that increased signal density is paramount for future designs,” said John Burkett, product manager for FCI.

ZipLine is built upon FCI’s proven AirMax VS® technology and offers similar signal integrity performance. Like AirMax VS, the ZipLine connector system uses edge-coupling technology to deliver high signal density with low insertion loss and low crosstalk, all without the use of costly and space-consuming metal shields. Data rates can scale from 2.5Gb/s to beyond 12Gb/s without requiring re-design of a basic platform.

“Our goal was to design a high speed connector that offers flexible pin configurations along with the greatest signal density in all three dimensions to address mechanical and thermal concerns for system designers,” said Steve Minich, staff development engineer for FCI.

In addition to superior electrical performance and signal density, ZipLine offers a high degree of design versatility. Standard orthogonal, backpanel, and power components can be configured in many ways to satisfy unique application requirements without the need for new tooling or long lead times.

ZipLine uses hard metric design practice and can be placed next to AirMax VS signal and power connectors.

ZipLine provides 84.6 differential signal pairs in a 6-pair version on 1.8mm column pitch, and can go to 101 signal pairs per inch at 1.5mm column pitch (to be tooled as customers require). Available in both backplane and orthogonal configurations, the 6-pair, 12 IMLA product offers 72 differential pairs that will fit into a one-inch daughter card pitch. A 3-pair, 8 IMLA version is also available and is compatible with a 15mm card pitch.

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