Patent ID: 7866896

Claim:
An assembly comprising: a backplane having a back face comprising a PCB edge connector and an opposing front face comprising a plurality of pin-type electrical connectors, where the PCB edge connector is electrically coupled to each of the plurality of pin-type electrical connectors; a plurality of connector modules, each connector module adapted to physically and electrically couple to one of the plurality of pin-type electrical connectors, each connector module comprising: a housing defining at least opposing first and second faces, a first electrical or optical connector at the first face; and a second electrical connector at the second face, in which the second electrical connector is a pin connector, where the pin connector is adapted to physically and electrically couple to one of the pin-type electrical connectors on the backplane, and the second electrical connector is electrically coupled to the first electrical or optical connector; where each housing is sized such that it occupies approximately one-eighth of the area of the front face of the backplane when the connector module is coupled to the backplane.