Patent ID: 8079847

Claim:
An orthogonal connector system for connecting a first circuit board and a second circuit board oriented orthogonally with respect to the first circuit board, the orthogonal connector system comprising: a receptacle assembly and a header assembly mated with the receptacle assembly, the receptacle assembly being connected to the first circuit board and the header assembly being connected to the second circuit board, the receptacle assembly and the header assembly both have a housing and contact modules held by the corresponding housing, each contact module having a dielectric body and conductors therein, the conductors being coplanar within the dielectric body, the conductors having mating contacts extending from the dielectric body; wherein the mating contacts of the receptacle assembly are directly connected to the mating contacts of the header assembly; wherein at least some of the conductors of the receptacle assembly define power conductors configured to transmit power and at least some of the conductors of the header assembly define power conductors configured to be mated with the power contacts of the receptacle assembly; and wherein the conductors of the contact modules of the receptacle assembly include both power conductors and signal conductors being coplanar within the corresponding dielectric body.