mm Wave Connector Solutions at IMS 2025
At IMS 2025, Samtec presented several live product demonstrations of mm wave connector solutions. These demos showcased products and technologies that address the design challenges of complex systems, including 5G and 6G networks, test and measurement, phased arrays, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence.
In the video above, Samtec’s David Beraun takes you on a quick tour of the demos.
The star of the show was Samtec’s glass core technology, or GCT, which enabled our customer, Nokia Bell Labs, to design state-of-the-art mm wave on glass components and systems. This demonstration shows their mm wave radio on glass. GCT offers many benefits as compared to organic substrates. This includes excellent signal integrity, miniaturization, embedded passive components, environmental ruggedness, high-volume manufacturing, and advanced packaging capabilities.
Here’s a video, from IMS 2025, where Nokia Bell Labs’ Shahriar Shahramian explains the benefits of Samtec glass core technology. Here’s a useful blog outlining the five key things you need to know about designing on glass.
The same demonstration featured many Samtec mm wave connector products, including compression-mount board connectors in both vertical and edge-launch designs, our new Nitrowave™ high-performance microwave cable assemblies, and our flexible waveguide technology.
In another demonstration, a Rohde & Schwarz ZVA vector network analyzer measured the insertion and return loss of a Samtec Bulls Eye® high-performance test system. It showed our BE90A product, which was originally released up to 90 GHz, with a new optimized launch, showing usable bandwidth up to 105 GHz.
The DUT includes the BE90A with a three-inch cable, the PCB launch, and a small amount of trace. And the results were excellent.
Another demonstration showcased the stability and performance of Samtec’s Nitrowave phase- and amplitude-stable coaxial cable.
The cable was subject to continuous, dynamic flexing because it’s connected to a video arcade game (really). We were actively flexing the orange Nitrowave coax cable and displaying the results in real-time. The flexing was controlled by whoever was playing the game.
And just to make it interesting, we added a shock and vibration box where we run the signals through a VITA 90 VNX+ module. We measured insertion loss and VSWR through a three-meter Nitrowave cable, from DC to 43 GHz, using a Keysight VNA. Once again, the results are excellent.
If you have any questions about the demos or products, please contact us at [email protected].
