BACKPLANE CONNECTOR OMITTING GROUND SHIELDS AND SYSTEM USING SAME

摘要

A backplane connector includes a shielded design that has wafers with signal terminals supported as edge-coupled terminal pairs for differential signaling. A ground shield is mounted on each wafer and provides a U-channel that partially shields each terminal pair. The wafers omit a ground terminal between adjacent terminal pairs. An insert can be provided to help connect the ground shield to a U-shield to provide U-shaped shielding structure substantially the entire way from a tail to a contact.