Recently, at the Shanghai Munich Exhibition, Hirose Electric Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Hirose") brought its FX26 series products, which won the CES2020 Innovation Award and the 16th JPCA Excellence Award, to a grand appearance. In addition, Hirose also brought a series of products such as the BM46 series that also won the CES2020 Innovation Award and the new generation of Ethernet connector ix Industrial, covering consumer electronics, industrial, automotive, 5G infrastructure and other fields. The product and prototype model were shown to the audience. Taking this opportunity to participate in the exhibition, the reporter of "International Cable and Connection" interviewed Mr. Cao Peihao, the company's marketing director in China, and learned about Hirose's new developments in consumer electronics, automotive, industrial and other fields, as well as the future "intelligence" Connected views.
Hirose is a world-leading Japanese connector company. Since its establishment 83 years ago, it has been deeply involved in the connector industry. With its excellent innovation capabilities, it has continued to inject new blood into the industry, with more than 50,000 products. According to Cao Peihao, Hirose's 2019 financial report was 121.765 billion yen (equivalent to about RMB 8 billion). The company's product development guiding ideology is that 30% of the year's sales should come from products developed in the previous three years. . This shows that Hirose attaches great importance to innovation, so its new products and product research and development trends have always been at the forefront of the industry and have become the vane guiding the development of the industry.
"At this exhibition, we mainly showcase three major areas of consumer, industrial, and automotive products, as well as the 5G area that will be launched this year. At the same time, we have divided and displayed four series of products with similar product advantages." Cao Peihao mentioned that the products they bring are characterized by miniaturization, easy operation, and large current.
New breakthrough in consumer electronics connectors: the smallest in the world
"In the 5G era, consumer electronics needs to be miniaturized, high-speed, high-reliability, and large current," Cao Peihao said. Consumer electronics products such as 5G mobile phones, smart speakers, sweeping robots, wireless headphones, smart watches, etc. have recently become popular. The products are all developing in the direction of miniaturization, high frequency, high speed, and large current. Correspondingly, there will be similar requirements for connectors. "Like 5G mobile phones, the antenna needs to be increased, but the consumer demand for mobile phones is "large screen, light and thin", the connector needs to be smaller and achieve more connection functions." Cao Peihao also uses wireless headphones, smart watches, Examples such as smart speakers demonstrate the development trend of connectors.
The development of new products is always accompanied by challenges to the original process. "Miniaturization corresponds to large currents. It is difficult to make things small while passing large currents; it is also difficult to design with floating functions to take into account high-frequency transmission. Cao Peihao pointed out that there are some technical requirements for the design of the connector if it needs small and large current, but also to ensure reliability.
Hirose has brought more than 50 kinds of consumer electronic connector products. Cao Peihao introduced two products that can meet the characteristics of miniaturization, high current, and high reliability, as well as other innovations. "These innovations and breakthroughs are believed It will be the latest development trend and trend."
The first is the One Action Lock connector series, which is a one-time plug-in connector. It has three advantages and characteristics: 1. Innovative "plug and lock", plug and lock, click to connect, and complete in 3 seconds, which greatly improves the efficiency of insertion and realizes the automation of the assembly line; 2. The opening part adopts a unique spring design, which can greatly reduce the insertion force of FFC and FPC and have high retention force; 3. Only need to reserve the insertion space to complete the lock, which greatly improves the design flexibility of customers. It has been widely used in SLR cameras, AR, VR and wearable devices.
The second model is the BM46 series, which won the CES2020 Innovation Award. It is worthy of special attention that it is the smallest board-to-board connector in the world, with a pitch of only 0.35mm, a depth of 2.0mm, and a mating height of 0.6mm. The connector is developed for 5G mobile terminals. The research and development comes from a new perspective, that is, starting from the connector itself, the product size is reduced to achieve "multi-core RF" + "digital signal" in a connector product, which helps The equipment is miniaturized and production efficiency is improved. In addition, the connector can receive radio frequency signals up to 12GHZ.
"In recent years, with the rapid development of new communication standards, the number of antennas tends to increase. If traditional cable-type connectors are used, products such as smart phones or PCs will be full of wiring." Cao Peihao pointed out that the past 5G mobile phone antennas are connected You may need two pairs, but one pair of BM46 series products can solve the problem. Therefore, the compact BM46 series, which supports multi-core RF and digital signals and has superior high-frequency characteristics, can increase the design freedom of innovative 5G and IoT products. It has been adopted by many products and modules such as smartphones and mobile routers. .
Innovative industrial connectors: research and development of single-pair Ethernet (SPE)
"Compact miniaturization, low latency, anti-interference, high contact reliability, easy operation, etc. are the development trends of industrial connectors." Cao Peihao pointed out that the complex environment of the industry itself has stricter requirements on the performance of connectors. Such as waterproof, high temperature resistance, vibration resistance, corrosion resistance, etc., some properties are especially emphasized according to the application scenarios of the connector. But the infiltration of 5G, Internet of Things and other technologies will put forward more basic requirements for connectors.
"Like industry 4.0, the wiring requirements are very strict, because the operation of the equipment must be synchronized, so the connector must meet high-speed data transmission, low latency, low loss, high reliability, etc., in order to achieve future visualization, high Efficient production." Cao Peihao said.
More than 40 industrial connectors were brought to the Hirose exhibition. Cao Peihao focused on introducing the new generation of industrial Ethernet small connectors IX series products, which meet the requirements of smart factories for miniaturization, high strength, high transmission, and anti-interference , and has the trend of replacing RJ45 in the industrial field in the future.
"Compared with RJ45, the size of IX series products has been reduced by about 75%, and the volume is only one-third of RJ45." Cao Peihao said that the reduced size allows more freedom in space design, and the number of insertions and removals reaches 5000 times. The metal lock buckle solves the problems of the RJ45 buckle that is easy to break, insufficient sturdiness, and too large. In addition, IX series products support Cat. The 6A new generation Ethernet standard (10Gbps), the metal contact between the plug and the socket plays a role in anti-electromagnetic interference.
IX series products are products launched by Hirose in 2016 to prepare for industrial 4.0 Ethernet connections. In 2017, they jointly promoted with HARTING, Germany. They are widely used due to their compact and miniaturized design, high-speed transmission characteristics, and reliability. In industrial automation, robotics, machine vision and other industrial equipment. It is understood that in addition to achieving compatibility with HARTING, this product series will also be compatible with Amphenol, popularized in more applications, and will be used as the new miniaturized standard Ethernet connection required by industry 4.0 in the future. The device is used in more industries.
IX series products
In addition, Cao Peihao revealed that Hirose is developing Single Pair Ethernet (SPE). The IX series products currently being promoted require two pairs of twisted pairs or four pairs of twisted pairs to complete the layout, while SPE only uses one pair of twisted pairs. Can provide the required data rate. SPE has the characteristics of small, light, flexible wiring, easy to install, etc., and has a higher cost performance. It can also achieve "de-standardization", which can be adapted to each other. It is understood that Hirose is working with Friends of Harting and other manufacturers to jointly promote SPE products.
Automotive connectors: first ensure reliability
"Automotive safety comes first. Many connectors are used in cars. The first thing to ensure is the reliability of the connectors." Cao Peihao mentioned that because of the environment in which the car is used, the connectors must be resistant to vibration or high temperature. Requirements to ensure the reliability of the connector. Although today's cars are moving towards multi-function, infotainment, and environmental protection, the main requirements for the connector itself are miniaturization, light weight, high reliability, vibration resistance, and high temperature resistance.
Hirose's car connector also brought many exhibits at this exhibition. Among them, the FX26 series products are particularly exciting. This product won the CES2020 Innovation Award and the 16th JPCA Excellence Award. The FX26 series is specially developed for the internal connection of power transmission systems such as inverters/motor controllers, the core products of EV/HEV. It has a floating board-to-board structure with 140°C heat resistance and high vibration resistance. Connector. The FX26 series meets the high-reliability design of in-vehicle quality, and specifically solves the problems of the traditional design of board-to-wire connectors that are difficult to achieve automatic production or have insufficient heat resistance, vibration resistance and miniaturization.
FX26 series products
Research and development of connectors: conform to the trend of intelligent development
"Intelligent development" is a future trend that can be reflected in the development of all walks of life since the commercialization of 5G. Especially after the epidemic, the country has promoted "new infrastructure", and the accelerated development of 5G, cloud computing, and data centers has highlighted that intelligence is accelerating to us.
The current smart industry can be divided into smart networks, smart homes, smart mobility, and smart grids. "The smart homes and smart cities we are talking about are actually far away from us." Cao Peihao said, Hirose has been deploying smart homes in the past few years. The real landing of these industries will involve the renovation of houses and consumers. Investment, and the currently mentioned requirements for connectors for smart homes are miniaturization, high reliability, high current, and durability, and the current connector level can cover.
In the industrial field, intelligent development will be realized faster. At present, various countries are actively promoting the development of industrial intelligence, such as Germany’s “Industry 4.0”, Japan’s “Smart Factory”, the United States’ “Industrial Internet”, and China’s “Made in China 2025” and “New Infrastructure”. It is through the development of Internet of Things technology to gradually realize industrial digitization and intelligent transformation to meet high-efficiency and high-quality production.
Intelligence is the direction of industrial development. A single device is like an AGV automatic guided transport vehicle, which has been able to achieve unmanned transportation throughout the entire transportation process, greatly improving the production efficiency of the enterprise and reducing labor costs; the entire factory is like Tesla's Shanghai Super Factory, and one can achieve fully automatic The smart factory of the production line is fully automated from production, testing, handling, assembly to packaging. The development of smart factories will bring about changes in the structure of the production line, such as the increase of networked machines, the large amount of data generated, the modularization of equipment design, the complexity of high-power environments, the vibration production of fully automatic equipment, and the increase in the number of sensors, etc., connect accordingly The device needs to make changes such as high-speed transmission, miniaturization, compound type, anti-interference, vibration resistance, high reliability, and low delay.
In this regard, Cao Peihao mentioned that Hirose has launched a new generation of Ethernet connector ix Industrial series products with "miniaturization, anti-interference, and high-speed transmission", integrating multiple functions such as "floating, high-speed transmission, signal transmission and power supply combination". The Function MAX series products and the single-pair Ethernet (SPE) products under development are all in compliance with the trend of industrial intelligent development, making the connector suitable for higher-quality industrial needs.
Finally, Cao Peihao concluded: "Consumer electronics connectors emphasize miniaturization, automotive connectors emphasize reliability, and industrial connectors emphasize reliability and durability. Therefore, Hirose products have basically continued to make smaller appearances, stronger and more reliable. With more Internet of Things, more emphasis will be placed on transmission rate, low latency and low loss."