2023 Top Five European Connector Suppliers

Bishop & Associates has completed its 2023 European Customer Satisfaction Survey of the Electronic Connector Industry, an evaluation of 17 connector manufacturers. A total of 280 customers answered 17 questions relating to important issues such as quality, pricing, delivery, lead times, technical support, and more to determine the top five European connector suppliers.

What are Industrial RJ45 connectors? 

The Industrial RJ45 meets a number of industry standards:  

• ANSI/TIA 1096-A – physical dimensions, mechanical characteristics, and contact requirements.   
• T-568A and T-568B wiring standards for wiring and pinouts.  
• IEEE standards 802.3at, 802.3af and 802.3bt – Ethernet specifics and details for power over Ethernet (PoE) devices where the connector supplies electrical current to the end device.  
• IEEE 1394 – Data interface bus structure used with RJ45 devices. 

USB at a Glance

USB connectors are available in standard, mini, and micro sizes, as well as in different connector styles, such as circular connectors and Micro-D versions. The specifications commonly mentioned are: 

USB 3.0 (5 Gb/s) also known as USB 3.1 Gen 1, came out in 2008. It is currently known as USB 3.2 Gen 1 and works with USB Type A and USB Type C connectors.
USB 3.1 or USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10 Gb/s) followed in 2014, currently known as USB 3.2 Gen 2 or USB 3.2 Gen 2×1, it works with USB Type A and USB Type C.

What are OSFP transceivers?

The OSFP (octal small form factor pluggable) is a type of transceiver that connects a network device, such as a switch, to fiber or copper cable. It is one of two form factors for 400G access networks and data centers, along with QSFP-DD (quad small form factor pluggable-double density).

Standards, Materials, and Testing for Four Types of Resistance

From choosing high-quality materials for housing, coating, plating, insulating, and sealing to protecting the insulation and conductor core against environmental challenges and chemical deterioration, material choices for connectors, and overmolding or jacketing for cables, helps maintain the integrity of the connection under extreme conditions, including rugged operating environments, sterilization processes, or mishandling.

FTTH/B Global Ranking 2023

An initiative of the FTTH Councils Global Alliance, the report analyses FTTH/B penetration rates across the globe. The data from September 2022 show that 22 countries have achieved penetration rates higher than 50 per cent. The UAE leads the ranking with 98.1 per cent, while Qatar rapidly caught up reaching the second position at 97.8 per cent (vs 84 per cent from the previous year). Singapore (96.5 per cent), Hong Kong (91.6 per cent), and China (89.4 per cent) complete the top 5 positions.

Connector Industry Books Record Sales in 2022

The connector industry achieved full year 2022 sales growth of +7.8%, reaching global sales of $84.1 billion. This is a new industry record for sales. North America achieved better sales growth than China in 2022. In fact, North America outperformed China in three of the past five years.

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What is a pin header?

A pin header, or header, is a male connector with one or two rows of metal pins attached to a plastic base. Pin headers with more than two rows are available from some manufacturers. The pins are spaced in uniform intervals (commonly 2.54 mm or 0.1 inch apart) but many spacings are available depending on the application. The female counterpart is sometimes referred to as a female socket header.

What are board-to-board connectors?

Board-to-board (BTB) connectors are used to transmit signals between printed circuit boards (PCBs), and they may include:
Parallel backplane connectors
Mezzanine connectors
Edge card connectors
Flexible Printed Circuit (FPC)

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Baidu unveils autonomous vehicle without steering wheel

The new vehicle will possess autonomous Level 4 capabilities that need no human intervention, with 8 lidars and 12 cameras alongside the car. Lidars are detection systems, similar to radars, which use pulsed laser light rather than radio waves. Apollo Go, Baidu's robotaxi service, has operated over 1 million across 10 Chinese cities since its launch in 2020 and Baidu said in April that it received permits to deploy robotaxis without humans in the driving seat on open roads in Beijing.

What are SMP Connectors?

Subminiature push-on (SMP) connectors are highly shielded, very small interconnects commonly used in miniaturized high frequency coaxial modules and high data rate applications such as antennas, broadband installations, Test & Measurement, and quantum computing. SMP connectors are covered by MIL-STD 348, 326-1 thru -5. The smaller SMPM version is covered by MIL-STD-348; 328-1 thru -3.

MPO Fiber Optic Connectors

Gender MPO connectors can be male or female. Male MPO connectors have two alignment pins protruding from the end of the ferrule; female MPO connectors have holes in the ferrule.
Color coding Singlemode multifiber cable jackets are yellow. Multimode multifiber cable jackets are aqua for OM3 and OM4 (some manufacturers use Erika-violet for OM4) and lime for OM5.
Connector types The MPO-12 (one row of 12 fibers) is the most common type. Higher-density connectors that feature multiple rows of 12 fibers, as well as MPO-16 (one row of 16 fibers) and MPO-32 (two rows of 16 fibers) are also available. Many data centers today use MPO-24 (two rows of 12 fibers).
Standards IEC 61754-7 and TIA 604-5

What are M-Type Sensor Connectors?

• Standards M12 (EC 61076-2-101), M8 (IEC 61076-2-104), and M5 (IEC 61076-2-105:2008)
• Sealing Ingress protection ranges from IP65 to IP69.
• Markets, Sectors, and Applications M-type connectors are widely used in a variety of applications, but prevalently in industrial automation, actuator, sensor, measurement, robotics, automotive industries, and transportation.

What are FAKRA connectors?

FAKRA connectors are used throughout automotive vehicles in applications such as telematic and GPS navigation, entertainment systems, Bluetooth, cellular, keyless entry, climate controls, and radio antennas. They are also used in sensor systems for autonomous controls. Other non-auto applications include outdoor routers, industrial process control boxes, machine-to-machine modules, and IoT devices.

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I/O Rectangular Connectors Make the Connection Across Markets

I/O rectangular connectors are anticipated to account for approximately 14.2% of all connectors in 2021, down from 14.4% in 2020. They are the third largest connector product type, exceeded by PCB connectors (anticipated to account for approximately 31.8%) and applications specific (anticipated to account for approximately 19.5%). The primary reason application specific connectors top I/O rectangular sales is because most automotive connectors, including those used in electric vehicles, fall under application specific.

A New Generation of Ethernet Cables and Connectors

Designed to support IEEE 802.3bq 25G/40GBASE-T applications up to 30m, Cat8 cables are fully shielded like Cat7 solutions, but are standardized in ANSI/TIA-568-C.2-1 and deliver the highest possible Ethernet performance for upgrading copper architectures without switching to fiber. Although the standard was published in November 2016, we are just beginning to see a growing array of connectors and jacks for this cable category.

Circular Connector Market Continues to Expand

Circular connectors, representing $4.3 billion or approximately 6.9% of total connector sales in 2020, declined a mere 1.4%. Although sales of cable assemblies using circular connectors did decline in 2020, anticipated growth in 2021 means this product will represent over 9% of the worldwide cable assembly market, ranking behind application-specific and I/O rectangular assemblies.

The Case for Single-Pair Ethernet in Industrial Applications

Single-pair Ethernet (SPE) promises to revolutionize industrial applications with speeds up to 1 gigabit per second (Gb/s) over a single pair. Yet there are still questions surrounding standardization and the benefits of SPE when compared to industrial RJ45 and other standard products.

New Ethernet Standard Approved with up to 400 Gbps Speed

The Ethernet Alliance has taken the opportunity to announce and publish the 802.3cu standard, already finalized, which allows reaching speeds of 100 and 400 Gbps in single-mode fiber optics for each wavelength. Reaching more speed per wave allows less energy to be used, which reduces cost and enables denser networks to be operated with less equipment, which reduces heat.

The Evolution of High-Performance Backplane Technology

By embedding interconnects between daughtercards on and in a backplane, precise electrical paths can be economically duplicated in mass production quantities. Both signal and power can be efficiently distributed by adjusting the width and thickness of the copper conductors. Electrical characteristics, including impedance, crosstalk, and skew, can be tightly controlled.