CN111048928B

CN111048928B - External electric connector and computer system

Info

Publication number: CN111048928B
Application number: CN201811191078.0A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 谌宏政; 廖哲贤; 柯智化
Original assignee: Giga Byte Technology Co Ltd
Current assignee: Giga Byte Technology Co Ltd
Priority date: 2018-10-12
Filing date: 2018-10-12
Publication date: 2021-09-17
Anticipated expiration: 2038-10-12
Also published as: CN111048928A

Abstract

An external electrical connector comprises a carrier and a plurality of terminals configured on the carrier. The terminals support at least two transmission modes of PCI-E, USB, HDMI and DP, and part of the terminals are used for transmitting at least two signals of PCI-E, USB, HDMI and DP. The invention also comprises a computer system.

Description

External electric connector and computer system

Technical Field

The present invention relates to an electrical connector and a computer system, and more particularly, to an external electrical connector and a computer system.

Background

The computer architecture has been continuously evolving over the years in response to the user's needs, and the connector used in the computer has been continuously updated in specification due to the increase of the data transmission amount. However, the architecture of the home computer is not changed much, and the computer has one or more motherboards installed in a single housing, whether the motherboards are extended from the standard ATX (advanced Technology extended) specification to the E-ATX specification in response to the user workstation requirement, or are reduced to the Mini-ITX specification in response to the consumer home requirement. If the expansion is to be performed by the internal connection type expansion device, the size of the casing is limited, and the internal connection type expansion device capable of being placed in the casing is selected to be installed on the mainboard. If the expansion is performed by the external expansion device, the expansion is limited by the type of the external connector in the current computer architecture, so that the expandability is limited.

Disclosure of Invention

The invention provides an external electric connector which can support at least two transmission modes of PCI-E, USB, HDMI and DP and provide preferable expandability.

The invention provides a computer system which is provided with the external electric connector.

The invention provides an external electric connector, which comprises a carrier and a plurality of terminals configured on the carrier. The terminals support at least two transmission modes of PCI-E, USB, HDMI and DP, and part of the terminals are used for transmitting at least two signals of PCI-E, USB, HDMI and DP.

The invention relates to a computer system, which comprises a mainboard module. The mainboard module comprises a mainboard body and the external electric connector. The mainboard body comprises at least two of a PCI-E controller, a USB controller, an HDMI controller and a DP controller. Each external electric connector is configured on the mainboard body and is electrically connected with at least two of the PCI-E controller, the USB controller, the HDMI controller and the DP controller.

In an embodiment of the invention, the computer system further includes a first external expansion device, which includes at least one of a PCI-E controller, a USB controller, an HDMI controller and a DP controller, and at least one external electrical connector, the at least one external electrical connector is electrically connected to at least one of the PCI-E controller, the USB controller, the HDMI controller and the DP controller of the first external expansion device, and the external electrical connector of the first external expansion device is electrically connected to the external electrical connector disposed on the motherboard body.

In an embodiment of the invention, the computer system further includes a second external expansion device, which includes at least one of a PCI-E controller, a USB controller, an HDMI controller and a DP controller, and at least one external electrical connector, the first external expansion device includes two external electrical connectors, one of the external electrical connectors of the first external expansion device is electrically connected to the external electrical connector disposed on the motherboard body, and the other external electrical connector of the first external expansion device is electrically connected to the external electrical connector of the second external expansion device.

In one embodiment of the present invention, some of the terminals support the transmission mode of PCI-E x 16.

In an embodiment of the invention, a part of the terminals are commonly used for transmitting signals of the PCI-E and the DP.

In an embodiment of the invention, a part of the terminals are commonly used for transmitting signals of the PCI-E and the HDMI.

In an embodiment of the present invention, the terminals include 14 USB signal terminals and 72 PCI-E x16 signal terminals.

In an embodiment of the present invention, among the 72 PCI-E x16 signal terminals, 8 terminals are selectively used as HDMI signal terminals and are commonly used for transmitting signals of PCI-E and HDMI, and these terminals further include 4 HDMI signal terminals, and 8 terminals transmit HDMI signals together with the 4 HDMI signal terminals.

In an embodiment of the present invention, among the 72 PCI-E x16 signal terminals, 8 terminals can be selectively used as DP signal terminals and are commonly used for transmitting signals of PCI-E and DP, and these terminals further include 4 DP signal terminals, and the 8 terminals transmit DP signals together with the 4 DP signal terminals.

In an embodiment of the invention, the terminals at least include 148 terminals.

In an embodiment of the invention, the terminals support the transmission modes of PCI-E and USB, and the terminals for transmitting USB signals are located between the terminals for transmitting PCI-E signals.

In an embodiment of the invention, the terminals include a plurality of pairs of high-speed signal terminals, a plurality of ground terminals, and a plurality of power terminals, wherein one of the ground terminals or one of the power terminals is disposed between two adjacent pairs of the high-speed signal terminals to shield signals transmitted by the two adjacent pairs of the high-speed signal terminals.

Based on the above, the terminals of the external electrical connector of the present invention support at least two transmission modes of PCI-E, USB, HDMI and DP, and can be inserted into a wider variety of external expansion devices. In addition, a part of the terminals of the external electric connector of the invention are commonly used for transmitting at least two signals of PCI-E, USB, HDMI and DP, so that the external electric connector has less terminal number and smaller volume.

In order to make the aforementioned and other features and advantages of the invention more comprehensible, embodiments accompanied with figures are described in detail below.

Drawings

Fig. 1A is a schematic terminal diagram of an external electrical connector according to an embodiment of the invention.

Fig. 1B is an enlarged schematic view of a portion of the terminals of fig. 1A.

Fig. 1C is an enlarged schematic view of another part of the terminal of fig. 1A.

Fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of a motherboard module of a computer system according to an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of the computer system of FIG. 2.

FIG. 4 is a diagram of a computer system according to another embodiment of the invention.

Description of reference numerals:

10. 10 a: computer system

20. 20 a: motherboard module

21: main machine board body

22: chip and method for manufacturing the same

23: PCI-E controller

24: USB controller

25: HDMI controller

26: DP controller

28: memory device

31: first external expansion device

32: second external expansion device

33: third external expansion device

34: fourth external expansion device

40: transmission line

100: external electric connector

110: carrier

120: terminal with a terminal body

121. 122: power supply terminal

123: grounding terminal

124: USB signal terminal

125: PCI-E signal terminal

126: HDMI signal terminal

127: DP signal terminal

Detailed Description

Fig. 1A is a schematic terminal diagram of an external electrical connector according to an embodiment of the invention. Fig. 1B is an enlarged schematic view of a portion of the terminals of fig. 1A. Fig. 1C is an enlarged schematic view of another part of the terminal of fig. 1A.

Referring to fig. 1A to fig. 1C, the external electrical connector 100 of the present embodiment includes a carrier 110 and a plurality of terminals 120 disposed on the carrier 110. In this embodiment, the carrier 110 is, for example, an insulating layer of a circuit board, but the type of the carrier 110 is not limited thereto, and in other embodiments, the carrier 110 may also be an insulating plastic block or the like. In the present embodiment, in order to reduce the size of the external electrical connector 100, the terminals are disposed on two opposite sides of the carrier 110. Of course, in other embodiments, the terminals 120 may be disposed on the same surface of the carrier 110, if the size of the external electrical connector 100 is not limited.

The terminals 120 of the external electrical connector 100 support at least two transmission modes of PCI-E (peripheral component interconnect Express), USB (Universal Serial Bus), HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface) and DP (displayport), and a part of the terminals 120 are commonly used for transmitting signals of at least two of PCI-E, USB, HDMI and DP.

Specifically, in the present embodiment, the terminals 120 support four transmission modes, i.e., PCI-E, USB, HDMI, and DP. As shown in fig. 1A, the terminals 120 of the external electrical connector 100 include a plurality of PCI-E signal terminals 125, a plurality of USB signal terminals 124, a plurality of DP signal terminals 127, and a plurality of HDMI signal terminals 126 from left to right. In the present embodiment, some of the terminals 120 support the transmission mode of PCI-E x16, and more specifically, the PCI-E signal terminals 125 can transmit signals of PCI-E x 16. Some of the PCI-E signal terminals 125 (e.g., the PCI-E signal terminal 125 near the rightmost side) can also be used as the HDMI signal terminal 126, and are commonly used for transmitting PCI-E and HDMI signals. In addition, some of the PCI-E signal terminals 125 (e.g., the right side PCI-E signal terminal 125) may also be used as the DP signal terminal 127 for transmitting PCI-E and DP signals.

In addition, in the present embodiment, since the external electrical connector 100 supports the PCI-E x16 signal, the PCI-E x16 transmission mode may need to supply different voltages of 12V, +3.3 Vaux. Therefore, in the present embodiment, the POWER supply terminal 122 includes 3 sets of POWER terminals, and can supply three different voltages, respectively. One of the power terminals 122 in the 3 groups may also support the DP transmission mode, and the other power terminal 122 may also support the HDMI transmission mode. Therefore, only 3 sets of power supply terminals 122 can support the PCI-E x16, DP, HDMI power supplies, and have a smaller number of terminals.

In the present embodiment, at least a portion of the ground terminals 123 can be commonly used in any two transmission modes of PCI-E, USB, HDMI, and DP. Therefore, in other embodiments, if the terminals of the external electrical connector only support two transmission modes, i.e., PCI-E and USB, at least a portion of the ground terminals 123 are also used in common for the two transmission modes.

In addition, as can be seen from fig. 1A, in the present embodiment, the PCI-E signal terminals 125 are located on the left and right sides, and the USB signal terminal 124 is located between these PCI-E signal terminals 125. Of course, the relative positions of the PCI-E signal terminal 125, the USB signal terminal 124, the DP signal terminal 127 and the HDMI signal terminal 126 are only one of possible positions, and are not limited by the drawings.

It is worth mentioning that, in fig. 1A to 1C, in order to avoid the number of the terminals 120 being too large to make the drawing complicated, the positive and negative terminals transmitting the same kind of signals are schematically represented by the same terminal having a larger width. For example, in fig. 1A, the terminals with larger width include a PCI-E signal terminal 125, a USB signal terminal 124, a power supply terminal 122, a DP signal terminal 127, and an HDMI signal terminal 126 from left to right. In the above-described terminals, each includes two terminals that transmit a positive signal and a negative signal. In fig. 1A to 1C, each of the terminals with smaller width (for example, the ground terminal 123 and the power supply terminal 121) represents one terminal. Therefore, as shown in fig. 1A, in the present embodiment, the external electrical connector 100 has 148 terminals. Of course, in other embodiments, the number of terminals may vary with the transmission mode supported by the terminals, and is not limited to the above.

In the present embodiment, the 148 terminals include 72 PCI-E signal terminals 125 (including 48 dedicated PCI-E signal terminals 125, 6 sets (12 in total) of terminals shared by HDMI, and 6 sets (12 in total) of terminals shared by DP), 14 USB signal terminals 124, 44

ground terminals

123, 10 POWER terminals 121, 122 (including 3 sets (6 in total) of

POWER terminals

122 and 4 VBUS terminals 121, where the VBUS terminal is a charging terminal defined in USB3. x), 4 dedicated

HDMI signal terminals

126, and 4 dedicated DP signal terminals 127.

In the present embodiment, among the 72 PCI-E signal terminals 125, 8 terminals on the right side can be selectively used as the HDMI signal terminal 126 and are commonly used for transmitting signals of PCI-E and HDMI. That is, when the external electrical connector 100 is to transmit a PCI-E signal, the 8 HDMI and PCI-E common terminals are used to transmit a part of the PCI-E x16 signal. When the external electrical connector 100 is to transmit HDMI signals, the common terminals of 8 HDMI and PCI-E transmit HDMI signals together with the 4 HDMI signal terminals 126.

In addition, in the present embodiment, among the 72 PCI-E signal terminals 125, the 8 terminals located at the rightmost side can be selectively used as the DP signal terminal 127, and are commonly used for transmitting signals of PCI-E and DP. That is, when the external electrical connector 100 is to transmit a PCI-E x16 signal, the 8 DP and PCI-E shared terminals are used to transmit a portion of the PCI-E x16 signal. When the external electrical connector 100 is to transmit a DP signal, the common terminals of 8 DPs and PCI-E transmit the DP signal together with the 4 DP signal terminals 127.

Of course, the number and functions of the terminals are not limited thereto. In other embodiments, the external electrical connector may have at least 148 terminals, such as 160 terminals. The 160 terminals may include the 148 terminals described above plus 12 additional terminals, which may be a combination of a ground terminal and a power terminal.

In this embodiment, the ground terminal 123 has a function of shielding signals transmitted from the terminals on both the left and right sides, in addition to a function of grounding. Therefore, in the present embodiment, a terminal with a smaller width (for example, the ground terminal 123 or the power terminal 121) is disposed between two adjacent terminals (one terminal with a larger width is a pair of high-speed signal terminals), so that the probability of mutual interference between high-speed signals can be reduced. Thus, as can be seen from fig. 1A, the configuration of the terminals 120 is in the form of a wide-narrow stagger. Of course, the thickness on the drawing is only two or one terminal 120, and the thickness of the terminal 120 is not limited to the drawing.

In the present embodiment, the external electrical connector 100 includes the terminal 120 supporting transmission modes such as PCIE x16, USB3.2, HDMI, DP, and the like. Therefore, the external electrical connector 100 can be connected to an expansion device having the transmission interface, so that the expansion capability of the external electrical connector 100 is significantly stronger than that of the existing connector. More specifically, the external electrical connector 100 can be connected to an expansion device with PCIE x16 mode transmission, an expansion device with USB mode transmission, an expansion device with HDMI mode transmission, and an expansion device with DP mode transmission, so that a single external electrical connector 100 can be matched to the expansion devices with these transmission interfaces without having to provide four electrical connectors, and the external electrical connector 100 can have a smaller size because part of the terminals 120 are shared.

The following describes

computer systems

10, 10a and

motherboard modules

20, 20a to which the external electrical connector 100 of the present embodiment is applied.

Fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of a motherboard module of a computer system according to an embodiment of the invention. Referring to fig. 2, the computer system 10 of the present embodiment includes a motherboard module 20. The motherboard module 20 includes a motherboard body 21, at least one external electrical connector 100 disposed on the motherboard body 21, and at least one memory 28. The terminals 120 of the external electrical connector 100 shown in fig. 1A are the terminals in the external electrical connector 100 shown in fig. 2.

The main board body 21 includes a chip 22. The chip 22 is, for example, a north bridge chip, a south bridge chip, a PCH or a CPU, and the type of the chip 22 is not limited thereto. The chip 22 includes at least two of a PCI-E controller 23, a USB controller 24, an HDMI controller 25, and a DP controller 26. The external electrical connector 100 is disposed on the main board body 21 and electrically connected to at least two of the PCI-E controller 23, the USB controller 24, the HDMI controller 25, and the DP controller 26, so that the external electrical connector 100 can support the transmission mode of at least two of the PCI-E, USB, HDMI, and DP.

More specifically, in the embodiment, the chip 22 includes a PCI-E controller 23, a USB controller 24, an HDMI controller 25 and a DP controller 26, and the external electrical connector 100 is electrically connected to the PCI-E controller 23, the USB controller 24, the HDMI controller 25 and the DP controller 26 on the motherboard body 21, so as to support the transmission modes of PCI-E, USB, HDMI and DP. Therefore, the motherboard module 20 with the external electrical connector 100 has a strong external expansion capability, and can satisfy the user's requirement through a strong expandability.

For example, since the external electrical connector 100 has USB3.2 and DP functions, if the external expansion device connected to the external electrical connector 100 is a USB or DP transmission interface, it can support functions such as charging and hot plugging. In addition, the external expansion device connected to the external electrical connector 100 may also be a PCI-E architecture. Therefore, the conventional PCI-E architecture external expansion devices, such as display, sound, disk array, network …, etc., can be connected to the motherboard module 20 through the external electrical connector 100.

Such a motherboard module 20 may even omit the add-in capability without requiring too many add-in connectors or slots. More specifically, in the conventional motherboard module, there are many internal connectors or slots for the internal devices disposed in the housing to be inserted. Therefore, the size of the conventional motherboard module and the size of the housing are difficult to be reduced because the conventional motherboard module is configured with the internal connectors or the slots. The motherboard module 20 of the present embodiment can be configured to change the internal connector or the socket into the external electrical connector 100. In this way, since the expansion device is not directly disposed above the motherboard module 20 and inside the housing, the size of the motherboard module 20 itself can be reduced, and the housing for loading the motherboard module 20 can also be reduced.

In the present embodiment, the external electrical connector 100 of the motherboard module 20 can support the transmission modes of PCI-E x16, USB, HDMI and DP, and thus has a strong bandwidth and is an external expansion format. Such a feature is suitable for connecting a large number of external expansion devices for cooperative operations. In particular, the actually required transmission bandwidth of the external expansion device with cooperative computing capability is not high, and at present, the bandwidth required by part of the external expansion device with cooperative computing capability is more than enough even the bandwidth of PCIE x 1. Therefore, the motherboard module 20 of the present embodiment can be connected to a plurality of external expansion devices for cooperating with each other to fully utilize all transmission bandwidths of the external electrical connector 100 as much as possible.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of the computer system of FIG. 2. Referring to fig. 3, in the present embodiment, the computer system 10 further includes a first external expansion device 31, a second external expansion device 32, a third external expansion device 33 and a fourth external expansion device 34 in addition to the motherboard module 20 of fig. 2. In the present embodiment, each of the first external expansion device 31, the second external expansion device 32, the third external expansion device 33 and the fourth external expansion device 34 includes at least one of the PCI-E controller 23, the USB controller 24, the HDMI controller 25 and the DP controller 26, and at least one external electrical connector 100. The external electrical connector 100 is electrically connected to at least one of the PCI-E controller 23, the USB controller 24, the HDMI controller 25 and the DP controller 26 of the external expansion device.

For example, in the present embodiment, the first external expansion device 31, the second external expansion device 32, the third external expansion device 33 and the fourth external expansion device 34 each include a chip 22 having a PCI-E controller 23, a USB controller 24, an HDMI controller 25 and a DP controller 26, so as to support the transmission modes of PCI-E, USB, HDMI and DP. Of course, the first external expansion device 31, the second external expansion device 32, the third external expansion device 33 and the fourth external expansion device 34 may only include a part of controllers, and the form is not limited by the drawings.

As shown in fig. 3, in the present embodiment, the motherboard module 20 includes two external electrical connectors 100, and the first external expansion device 31 also includes two external electrical connectors 100. One of the external electrical connectors 100 of the first external expansion device 31 is electrically connected to one of the external electrical connectors 100 disposed on the main board body 21 through a transmission line 40, and the other external electrical connector 100 of the first external expansion device 31 is electrically connected to the external electrical connector 100 of the second external expansion device 32 through the transmission line 40.

In addition, one of the external electrical connectors 100 of the third external expansion device 33 is electrically connected to another external electrical connector 100 disposed on the motherboard body 21 through a transmission line 40, and the other external electrical connector 100 of the third external expansion device 33 is electrically connected to the external electrical connector 100 of the fourth external expansion device 34 through the transmission line 40.

It should be noted that, in an embodiment, taking the PCI-E type transmission of the external expansion devices as an example, the chip 22 of the motherboard module 20 supports 2 sets of PCI-E x16 bandwidths, and each external electrical connector 100 can support the PCI-E x16 bandwidth. The two external connectors 100 of the motherboard module 20 are respectively used for the first external expansion device 31 and the third external expansion device 33 as the first layer of expansion. Since the actual required transmission bandwidth of the external expansion device is not high, in the first layer of expansion, the first external expansion device 31 and the third external expansion device 33 may use the bandwidth of PCIE x1 only. In other words, the bandwidth of the PCI-E x16 of the external electrical connector 100 of the motherboard module 20 is not fully utilized. Therefore, the first external expansion device 31 and the third external expansion device 33 can also be provided to the second layer (i.e. the second external expansion device 32 and the fourth external expansion device 34) for expansion.

Similarly, the second external expansion device 32 and the fourth external expansion device 34 may also use only the bandwidth of PCIE x 1. The bandwidth of the PCI-E x16 of the external electrical connector 100 of the motherboard module 20 is still not fully utilized. Therefore, the second external expansion device 32 and the fourth external expansion device 34 can be provided to the third layer of external expansion device for expansion. Therefore, the motherboard module 20 of the present embodiment can be continuously connected to a plurality of external expansion devices to fully utilize all the transmission bandwidths supported by the chip 22 of the motherboard module 20 as much as possible.

Compared with the conventional motherboard module, an internal connector or socket can only be used for one internal device or an external connector can only be used for one external device, and each external electrical connector 100 on the motherboard module 20 of the embodiment can be connected to a plurality of external expansion devices in a serial connection manner, thereby fully utilizing the bandwidth of each external electrical connector 100 on the motherboard module 20.

In addition, in an embodiment, the external expansion devices of different layers may also be in different transmission modes. For example, the first external expansion device 31 is an external display card transmitted in a PCI-E format, the second external expansion device 32 is an external hard disk transmitted in an HDMI format, the third external expansion device 33 is a screen transmitted in a DP format, and the fourth external expansion device 34 is a keyboard or a mouse transmitted in a USB format.

In such an embodiment, the chip 22 in the first external expansion device 31 can support the bandwidth of the PCI-E x16 and the bandwidth of the HDMI. Therefore, the bandwidths of a set of PCI-E x16 from the external electrical connector 100 of the motherboard module 20 can be processed into a set of bandwidths of PCI-E x16 and a set of bandwidths of HDMI by the chip 22 of the first external expansion device 31. The first external expansion device 31 uses the bandwidth of PCI-E x16, and the first external expansion device 31 can also provide the bandwidth of HDMI for the second external expansion device 32.

Similarly, the chip 22 in the third external expansion device 33 can support the bandwidth of DP and the bandwidth of USB, so that the bandwidth of a set of DP from the external electrical connector 100 of the motherboard module 20 can be processed into a set of bandwidth of DP and a set of bandwidth of USB by the chip 22 of the third external expansion device 33. The third external expansion device 33 uses the bandwidth of DP itself, and the third external expansion device 33 can also provide the bandwidth of USB to the fourth external expansion device 34. .

FIG. 4 is a diagram of a computer system according to another embodiment of the invention. Referring to fig. 4, the difference between the computer system 10a of fig. 4 and the computer system 10 of fig. 3 is that in fig. 3, the motherboard module 20 has two external electrical connectors 100, and the first external expansion device 31 and the third external expansion device 33 are connected to the motherboard module 20 in a parallel manner.

In fig. 4, the motherboard module 20a may only have a single external electrical connector 100, the external electrical connector 100 of the first external expansion device 31 is electrically connected to the external electrical connector 100 of the motherboard module 20a through a transmission line 40, the external electrical connector 100 of the second external expansion device 32 is electrically connected to the external electrical connector 100 of the first external expansion device 31 through a transmission line 40, the external electrical connector 100 of the third external expansion device 33 is electrically connected to the external electrical connector 100 of the second external expansion device 32 through a transmission line 40, and the external electrical connector 100 of the fourth external expansion device 34 is electrically connected to the external electrical connector 100 of the third external expansion device 33 through a transmission line 40.

That is, in fig. 4, the external expansion device is connected to the motherboard module 20a in a serial manner. Similarly, since the chips 22 of the external expansion devices support at least one of the transmission modes of PCI-E, USB, HDMI and DP, and the actually required transmission bandwidth of the external expansion devices is not high, the external expansion devices can be connected in series to fully utilize the transmission bandwidth supported by the chips 22 of the motherboard module 20.

In summary, the terminals of the external electrical connector of the present invention support at least two transmission modes of PCI-E, USB, HDMI and DP, so that more external expansion devices can be inserted. In addition, a part of the terminals of the external electric connector of the invention are commonly used for transmitting at least two signals of PCI-E, USB, HDMI and DP, so that the external electric connector has less terminal number and smaller volume. The computer system of an embodiment of the invention utilizes the external electric connector arranged on the mainboard module and the external expansion device to ensure that each external electric connector on the mainboard module can be connected with a plurality of external expansion devices, so that the transmission bandwidth can be fully utilized and the computer system has good external expandability.

Although the present invention has been described with reference to the above embodiments, it should be understood that various changes and modifications can be made therein by those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.

Claims

1. An external electrical connector, comprising:

a carrier; and

a plurality of terminals disposed on the carrier, wherein the terminals support at least two transmission modes of PCI-E, USB, HDMI and DP, and a part of the terminals are commonly used for transmitting at least two signals of PCI-E, USB, HDMI and DP,

among the terminals are 14 USB signal terminals and 72 PCI-E x16 signal terminals,

among the 72 PCI-E x16 signal terminals, 8 terminals are selectively used as HDMI signal terminals and are commonly used for transmitting signals of PCI-E and HDMI, and the terminals also include 4 HDMI signal terminals, and the 8 terminals and the 4 HDMI signal terminals together transfer HDMI signals.

2. An external electrical connector as defined in claim 1, wherein a portion of said terminals are commonly used for transmitting signals of PCI-E and DP.

3. An external electrical connector as defined in claim 1, wherein a portion of the terminals are commonly used for transmitting signals of PCI-E and HDMI.

4. An external electrical connector as claimed in claim 1, wherein among the 72 PCI-E x16 signal terminals, 8 terminals are selectively used as DP signal terminals and are commonly used for transmitting signals of PCI-E and DP, and the terminals further include 4 DP signal terminals, and the 8 terminals transmit DP signals together with the 4 DP signal terminals.

5. A male electrical connector as in claim 1, wherein said terminals comprise at least 148 terminals.

6. An external electrical connector as defined in claim 1, wherein said terminals support PCI-E and USB transmission modes, and said terminals for transmitting USB signals are located between said terminals for transmitting PCI-E signals.

7. An external electrical connector as in claim 1, wherein said terminals comprise a plurality of pairs of high-speed signal terminals, a plurality of ground terminals and a plurality of power terminals, wherein one of said ground terminals or one of said power terminals is disposed between two adjacent high-speed signal terminals of said pairs of high-speed signal terminals for shielding signals transmitted by the two adjacent pairs of high-speed signal terminals.

8. A computer system, the computer system comprising:

a motherboard module, comprising:

a main board body, comprising at least two of a PCI-E controller, a USB controller, an HDMI controller and a DP controller: and

an external electrical connector as claimed in claim 1, wherein each of the external electrical connectors is disposed on the main board body and electrically connected to at least two of the PCI-E controller, the USB controller, the HDMI controller and the DP controller,

9. The computer system of claim 8, further comprising:

a first external expansion device, comprising at least one of a PCI-E controller, a USB controller, an HDMI controller and a DP controller, and at least one external electrical connector according to claim 1, wherein the at least one external electrical connector is electrically connected to at least one of the PCI-E controller, the USB controller, the HDMI controller and the DP controller of the first external expansion device, and the external electrical connector of the first external expansion device is electrically connected to the external electrical connector disposed on the main board body.

10. The computer system of claim 9, further comprising:

a second external expansion device, comprising at least one of a PCI-E controller, a USB controller, an HDMI controller and a DP controller, and at least one external electrical connector according to claim 1, wherein the first external expansion device comprises two external electrical connectors, one of the external electrical connectors of the first external expansion device is electrically connected to the external electrical connector disposed on the motherboard body, and the other external electrical connector of the first external expansion device is electrically connected to the external electrical connector of the second external expansion device.

11. The computer system of claim 8 wherein a portion of the terminals are used in common for transmitting PCI-E and DP signals.

12. The computer system of claim 8, wherein a portion of the terminals are commonly used for transmitting PCI-E and HDMI signals.

13. The computer system as claimed in claim 8, wherein among the 72 PCI-E x16 signal terminals, 8 terminals are selectively used as DP signal terminals and are commonly used for transmitting signals of PCI-E and DP, and said terminals further include 4 DP signal terminals, and the 8 terminals transmit DP signals together with the 4 DP signal terminals.

14. The computer system of claim 8, wherein the terminals comprise at least 148 terminals.

15. The computer system of claim 8 wherein said terminals support PCI-E and USB transmission modalities, said terminals for passing USB signals being located between said terminals for passing PCI-E signals.

16. The computer system of claim 8, wherein said terminals comprise pairs of high-speed signal terminals, ground terminals and power terminals, wherein one of said ground terminals or one of said power terminals is disposed between two adjacent high-speed signal terminals of said pairs of high-speed signal terminals for shielding signals transmitted by said two adjacent pairs of high-speed signal terminals.