Connector manufacturers don’t anticipate any issues this year hat could affect supply. However, they are reporting a pick up in demand. Because they predict a slow-growth scenario throughout the year, the uptick shouldn’t have a major impact on lead times.

“We are seeing demand pick up this year,” says Wes Morgan, director, Americas product management, at ITT Interconnect Solutions “Going into the first half, we’ve seen flat growth, and now order cycles are picking up a little bit, so it looks like we will get some growth in the second half.”

Morgan says some of the demand is coming from the commercial aerospace segment and some industrial applications.

Intel will be bringing out its next-generation processors early next year and those will be the first processors that use DDR4 memory, so connector companies in that market are dealing with that transition

Manufacturer FCI anticipates more interest for connector products that can support the 12 gigabits per second (Gbits/s) serial-attached SCSI (SAS) specification as it becomes finalized.

Price is upon the Raw materials

In terms of pricing, connector makers expect connector tags to remain steady, primarily due to the stabilization of raw materials pricing, particularly for precious metals.

“Commodity pricing is going to have stability over the next six to nine months out,” says Morgan. “If we see the economy ramp up, we’re probably going to see commodity prices rise. I think connector pricing is stable this year, and depending on what happens with commodity pricing and inflation, these factors will dictate what happens in 2014.”

Despite stable pricing for precious metals, connector makers continue to look at different and lower-cost materials. For example, FCI’s GXT plating, a palladium nickel alloy with a gold flash, continues to be an appealing alternative because it offers very comparable performance to gold, and typically at a lower price.

Push for higher data rates

One of the biggest challenges that connector makers face is the continuing trend toward higher data rates.

The big push right now from customers is for products that can operate at 25 to 28 Gbits/second per lane.The specific data rate depends partly on whether it’s an internal link across a backplane or between two boards or an external link where they tend to look for the higher data rate closer to 28 Gbits/s.

To meet growing demand, FCI recently rolled out its ExaMAX high-speed backplane connector platform, which targets data rates of 25 Gbits/s and higher. The initial target is for backplane applications, but the plan is to adopt the new platform for mezzanine and cable I/O connectors. It can be used with FCI’s existing AirMax high-speed interconnects.

FCI’s ExaMAX high-speed backplane connector platform
targets 25 Gbits/s designs, and offers a path up to 40 Gbits/s.

ITT also is working on new products to address high-speed, multi-gigabit copper applications in high reliability networks. The ITT new product will integrate nicely into their new cabling systems for high bandwidth and provide ease of termination, field repair and replacement. ITT also continues to address requirements for higher density with the Nano Density interconnects for high reliability.
ITT designed the Nano Miniature NDD series of high-density connectors
for high reliability and harsh environments.