New, Cutting-Edge High-Speed Products At Semicon (And In This Blog)

Semicon, the world’s largest semiconductor conference and exhibition, is September 23-25 in Taiwan. Like most shows of its size and caliber, Semicon boasts a long and illustrious list of exhibitors (500+), and countless forums, symposiums, and workshops.

Of course Semicon is taking place in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. According to Semi, the event organizer and industry association representative, “with the COVID-19 outbreak in Taiwan well-contained, SEMICON Taiwan 2020 will take place on schedule under the social distancing and other protective guidelines of the Taiwan government’s Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC).”

Samtec’s new and cutting-edge products that support the semiconductor industry will be demonstrated and on display. It’s a safe bet that most of you reading this blog will not be attending Semicon, so here’s a quick overview of what you would see if you were there:

56 Gbps PAM4 Product Demonstrator

This is a fully-packaged system that populates signal paths using real-world signal integrity design practices. It demonstrates up to 56 Gbps PAM4 signaling, utilizing Samtec Flyover^® cable assemblies.

For this active product demonstration, Samtec partnered with Credo.  Credo’s mixed signal 56 Gbps PAM4 Bald Eagle 2 silicon generates 16 bi-directional channels of QPRBS-31 signal data. 

Every signal passes through two or more Samtec connectors before returning to the SERDES. We measured bit error rates, insertion loss, eye height and diagrams, all in real-time. 

Precision RF Products

Samtec is unique in that we are vertically integrated from product design and fabrication, to full tech support, including launch optimization, simulation, and testing. Our microwave/mmWave and Signal Integrity engineers understand each signal path connection to help ensure your system is fully optimized. 

Our product offering of 18 to 110 GHz high-frequency solutions includes full cable assemblies, cable connectors, and board-level interconnects:

• 1.00 mm to 110 GHz
• 1.85 mm to 65 GHz
• SMPM to 65 GHz
• 2.40 mm to 50 GHz
• 2.92 mm to 40 GHz
• SMP to 40 GHz
• 3.50 mm to 34 GHz
• SSMA to 34 GHz
• SMA / N Type /  TNCA to 18 GHz

Samtec’s Bulls Eye^® supports test and measurement applications to 70 GHz. The high-density design enables smaller evaluation boards and shorter trace lengths for optimized performance. Bulls Eye is one of many products on display at Semicon.

High Speed Cable Assemblies

You can mix-and-match countless connector end-options with Samtec ultra-low skew twinax and micro coax cable. This provides extensive customizing capabilities.

Samtec Flyover Technology breaks the constraints of traditional signaling substrate and hardware offerings, resulting in a cost-effective, high-performance and heat efficient answer to the challenges of 56 Gbps bandwidths and beyond.

With the combination of the High-Speed Cable Plant, High-Speed Cable Group, and the Cable Management Group; Samtec is well-positioned to lead the market in speed and innovation. Click here to learn more about these capabilities.

High Speed Board-to-Board Connectors

Our newest high-speed board-to-board connectors are available for preview at Semicon and include:

NovaRay^® combines extreme density and performance for 112 Gbps PAM4 per channel in 40% less space than traditional arrays. The fully shielded differential pair design and two reliable points of contact contribute to the industry leading 4.0 Tbps aggregate data rate.

AcceleRate^® HD is a .635 mm high-density, multi-row mezzanine strip with up to 240 I/Os and a small footprint.

AcceleRate High-Performance Arrays are 0.635 mm pitch arrays with 112 Gbps PAM4 extreme performance and a flexible open-pin-field design.

Optics

The FireFly^™ Micro Flyover System™ is the first interconnect system that gives a designer the flexibility of using micro footprint high-performance optical and low-cost copper interconnects interchangeably with the same connector system.

FireFly optical products provide performance to 28 Gbps, x4 and x12 designs, a variety of end 2 options, a variety of heat sinks, extended temperature designs for military and industrial applications, and PCIe-over-fiber optical cable systems. The full line of FireFly products, and all other products mentioned above, will be on display at Semicon.