INTERCONNECT SOLUTIONS

Connectors Key to Medical System Performance

Connectors in today’s medical applications must function at higher speeds, provide higher density, smaller footprint and lower profiles and comply to ever stricter industry standards. FCI provides a range of solutions for imaging, data storage devices, communication systems, image archiving and online manipulation of images in the medical industry.



Scalability is an important feature that can make medical systems upgradeable to keep pace with market trends. For example, FCI’s AirMax VS® high-speed backplane connectors offer design versatility because signal connectors can be scaled by varying the number of columns of contacts, the number of contacts per column and the column spacing.

AirMax VS connectors also allow for mixed pin assignments (differential or single-ended signals or power) to provide additional flexibility to system designers. Data rates can scale from 2.5Gbit/s to beyond 12Gbit/s without requiring re-design of a basic platform. Medical equipment continually requires better performance, but the designer’s task is eased if the architecture remains intact as the specification evolves.

Improvements in flex cable connector technology enable advances in the performance of mobile monitoring, field operable CT and portable ultrasound systems. Examples are FCI’s MEG-Array® flex foil or BergStak®/Conan® on flex foil for less demanding applications.

For scanning applications, the MEG-Array high-density mezzanine system is suitable for both hospital systems and portable scans. It provides the features needed for MRI, CT and other imaging applications to achieve real time, higher resolution imaging.



Used to connect the photo diode within the scanner, MEG-Array’s higher density allows a greater number of slices, resulting in more accurate imaging. Additionally, MEG-Array delivers outstanding mechanical and electrical performance, achieving data rates of up to 10Gbit/s.

New industry standards such as USB, PCI, RJ45, DVI, MicroTCA and PCI Express™ are also being incorporated into medical designs. PCI Express, in particular, is finding growing acceptance in medical equipment. FCI has extended its vertical PCI Express card-edge connector family with surface mount technology to accommodate the needs of this market.

Traditionally, ultrasound systems have used standards based architectures like CompactPCI bus or VMEbus, but with backplane performance hitting the limitations of standard architectures, there is a clear need for connector technologies that offer higher performance and higher reliability at a reasonable cost. Card-edge technology is a logical choice for these backplane connections.

The use of surface mount PCIe Express card-edge connectors is not limited to backplane connections, but is also being used by ultrasound manufacturers to improve manufacturing yields for board to board connections.

Features

• Broad range of medical-standard interconnections
• AirMax VS scalable high-speed backplane connector
  • Flexible column count, contacts per column and spacing
  • Mixed pin assignments, differential or single-ended
  • Scales from 2.5Gbit/s to >12Gbit/s without architectural redesign
• MEG-Array on flex foil; BergStak/Conan on flex foil
• MEG-Array high density mezzanine system
  • Connects photo diode
  • Data rates to 10Gbit/s
• Surface mount PCI Express card-edge connectors
• Technology also suitable for board to board applications

Applications

• Mobile monitoring
• Field operable CT
• Portable ultrasound
• Imaging and scanning
  • MRI, CT and PET
• Data storage devices
• Communication systems
• Image archiving
• Online image manipulation

For further information, including the FCI Medical Imaging Applications Article, please click here