Patent ID: 9640915
Date: 2017-05-02
CPC Classifications: H01R

Claim:
1. An electrical connector configured to mate to a mating connector, the electrical connector comprising: an array of conductors held at least partially within a housing, the conductors in the array arranged side-by-side along a row, the array of conductors including signal conductors and configurable conductors, the configurable conductors each being selectively configurable between a ground state and a signal state to define a ground conductor or a signal conductor, respectively; and a ground tie bar extending across the array of conductors, the ground tie bar including a stem, wherein the stem has first and second edge sides; plural ground fingers extending from both the first and second edge sides along the length of the stem, the ground fingers cantilevered to extend between a fixed end at the stem and an opposite free end; the ground tie bar being programmable to selectively remove one or more of the ground fingers from the ground tie bar to decrease a number of ground fingers of the ground tie bar, a respective configurable conductor being in the ground state when one of the ground fingers extending from the first edge side and one the ground fingers extending from the second edge side engage the respective configurable conductor in two different locations along the respective configurable conductor, the respective configurable conductor being in the signal state when both of the ground fingers of the set are removed from the ground tie bar, and thus not present, to increase a number of the signal conductors in the array of conductors to correspond with a desired signal-ground electrical scheme; wherein the ground fingers each define a break zone at least one of at or proximate to the fixed end, the ground finger at the break zone having at least one of a reduced width relative to other portions of the ground finger, a reduced thickness relative to other portions of the ground finger, or a perforation to facilitate the removal of the ground finger from the ground tie bar.