High-speed board-to-board interconnects utilizing flexible foils and elastomeric connectors

Abstract

This paper presents a board-to-board interconnect technique utilizing elastomeric connectors and parallel microstrip lines on a flexible foil cable with low dielectric loss (tanδ = 0.002). It is shown that a pad structure combined with an elastomeric connector can be codesigned such that a good signal integrity and thus a high data transmission rate is achieved. It is also shown that 2 Gbps data transmission rate can be achieved with a 490mm-long microstrip on the flexible cable, where crosstalk is taken into accont. Utilizing the elastomeric connector together with the flat and flexible cable, dense parallel microstrips can easily be designed and processed since standard printed circuit board processing techniques can be utilized.