Electrical connector with imprived grounding bar

An electrical connector includes an insultive housing and defining a base seat and a mating portion extending from the base seat. A plurality of conductive terminals are retained in the mating portion and include a plurality of differential signal terminal pairs and grounding terminals, each conductive terminal defines a contacting portion disposed on the mating portion, a retaining portion fixed to the base seat and a connecting portion extending outside of the base seat, the contacting portion of each grounding terminal has a free end extending toward the inside of the mating portion and abutting against a first grounding bar. A second grounding bar defines a base portion and a plurality of abutting portions extending from the base portion and abutting against the retaining portions of the grounding terminals. The first grounding bar and the second grounding bar are connected by a bridging portion thereof.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to an electrical connector, and more particularly to an electrical connector used for high frequency transmission.

2. Description of the Related Art

Chinese Patent Application No. 103515792A published on Jan. 15, 2014, discloses an electrical connector including an insulative housing and a plurality of conductive terminals retained in the insulative housing. The insulative housing defines a base portion, a tongue portion extending forwardly from the base portion and a plurality of terminal slots formed on the tongue portion, the tongue portion defines at least one mating surface. The conductive terminal defines a retaining portion retained in the insulative housing and a contacting portion disposed on the tongue portion. The conductive terminals includes a plurality of differential signal terminal pairs and grounding terminals, the grounding terminals are arranged on both sides of each differential signal terminal pairs. The retaining portions of the grounding terminals are electrically connected to each other and the contacting portions of the grounding terminals are also electrically connected to each other. The electrical connector has a good high-frequency transmission performance when the transmission rate is 12 Gbps. However, when the transmission rate is up to 24 Gbps, signal crosstalk phenomenon is more obvious which seriously affecting the quality of the high-frequency signal transmission.

Therefore, an improved electrical connector is highly desired to meet overcome the requirement.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

An object of the present invention is to provide an electrical connector having good high frequency transmission performance.

In order to achieve above-mentioned object, an electrical connector includes an insultive housing extending along a longitudinal direction and defining a base seat and a mating portion extending from the base seat along a mating direction perpendicular to the longitudinal direction, the mating portion defines a mating surface and a plurality of terminal slots recessed on the mating surface. A plurality of conductive terminals are retained in the terminal slots and include a plurality of differential signal terminal pairs and a plurality of grounding terminals located between the plurality of differential signal terminal pairs, each conductive terminal defines a contacting portion disposed on the mating surface, a retaining portion fixed to the base seat and a connecting portion extending outside of the base seat, the contacting portion of each grounding terminal has a free end extending toward the inside of the mating portion. A first grounding bar is facing to the contacting portions of the conductive terminals, and the free ends of the grounding terminals are abutting against the first grounding bar. And a second grounding bar is facing to the retaining portions of the conductive terminals and defines a base portion and a plurality of abutting portions extending from the base portion and abutting against the retaining portions of the grounding terminals. The first grounding bar and the second grounding bar are connected by a bridging portion thereof.

DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENT OF THE INVENTION

Reference will now be made to the drawing figures to describe a preferred embodiment of the present invention in detail. Referring toFIG. 1toFIG. 2, an electrical connector100is soldered on a printed circuit board or connected to a cable. The electrical connector100includes an elongated insulative housing10extending along a longitudinal direction and a plurality of conductive terminals20retained in the insulative housing10. The insulative housing10defines a base seat11, a mating portion12extending forwardly from the base seat11along a mating direction perpendicular to the longitudinal direction and a pair of guiding portions13extending from both sides of the mating portion12. The guiding portion13defines a guiding slot131facing to the side of the mating portion11and used for guiding a mating connector.

The mating portion12defines a first surface121and a second surface122opposite to each other, and a convex portion123projecting from the first surface121. The first surface121is divided into a first mating surface1211, a second mating surface1212and a third mating surface1213formed on the convex portion123, the second surface122is defined as a forth mating surface.

Each conductive terminal20defines a contacting portion21disposed on said mating surface, a retaining portion22fixed to the base seat11and a connecting portion23projecting outside of the base seat11. The retaining portion22is connecting the contacting portion21and the connecting portion23, and the connecting portion23is used to secure to a circuit board or a cable by soldering or otherwise.

The conductive terminals20are divided into a plurality of differential signal terminal20a, grounding terminals20band power terminals20caccording to the signal transmission. The contacting portions21cof the power terminals20care disposed on the second mating surface1212, the contacting portions21cof the differential signal terminal20aand the contacting portions21cof the grounding terminals20bare disposed on the first mating surface1211, the third mating surface1213and the fourth mating surface122. The differential signal terminals20aare arranged in pairs, each pair of the differential signal terminals20aare located between two ground terminals20bin order to prevent crosstalk between each pair of differential signal terminals.

Referring toFIG. 4toFIG. 6, the electrical connector100defines a first grounding bar30disposed in the mating portion12of the insulative housing1and a second grounding bar40disposed in the base seat11of the insulative housing10. The first grounding bar30extending along the longitudinal direction and rearwardly assembled into a first middle slot of the mating portion12from a front side of the housing10, and the second grounding bar40extending along the longitudinal direction and forwardly assembled into a second middle slot of the base seat11from a rear side of the housing10. In other embodiment, the first and second grounding bars can also be injection molded in the insulative housing10. The first grounding bar30and the second grounding bar40are arranged along the longitudinal direction in order that the first grounding bar30is facing the contacting portions21of the conductive terminals20and the second grounding bar40is facing the retaining portion22of the conductive terminals20. The contacting portion of each grounding terminal20bdefines a free end24bextending toward the first grounding bar30in front side thereof, the free end24bis abutting against the first grounding bar30so as to form electrical connection.

Referring toFIG. 3, the first grounding bar30is a flat plate, the second grounding bar40defines a longitudinal base portion41, a plurality of resilient abutting portions42and resilient bridging portions43extending from the base portion41. In present embodiment, the abutting portions42and the bridging portions43are extending toward the first grounding bar30and substantially parallel, each bridging portion43is located between two abutting portions42. The abutting portion42is extending toward the retaining portion of the grounding terminal20band abutted against the corresponding retaining portion of the grounding terminal20bso that the grounding terminals20bare electrically connected to the second grounding bar40.

The first grounding bar30and the second grounding bar40are connected to each other by at least one bridging portion43, which is eliminating the potential difference between the first grounding bar30and the second grounding bar40so that the potential difference between the connecting portions and the retaining portions of the grounding terminals is close to zero potential, thereby improving the performance of the high-frequency transmission and obtaining good transmission quality. The number of the bridging portion43is preferred two in present embodiment, considering the size of the bridging portion43and the manufacturing difficulty of the electrical connector. The bridge portion43is substantially horizontal “S” shape and includes a first arcuate portion431opening downwardly and a second arcuate portion432opening upwardly in order to obtain good flexibility and increase retention. The first arcuate portion431is extending from the base portion41and the second arcuate portion432is extending from the first arcuate portion431and abutting against the first grounding bar30.

It is worth noting that, the bridging portion43extends only toward the first grounding bar30and need to be connected to the first grounding bar30so that the first grounding bar30and the second grounding bar40are electrically connected to each other. And the abutting portions42are not necessarily face the first grounding bar30, depending on the relative position between the conductive terminals20and the second grounding bar40.

It is to be understood, however, that even though numerous characteristics and advantages of the present invention have been set forth in the foregoing description, together with details of the structure and function of the invention, the disclosure is illustrative only, and changes may be made in detail, especially in matters of shape, size, and arrangement of parts within the principles of the invention to the full extent indicated by the board general meaning of the terms in which the appended claims are expressed.