JP2006114268A - Contactor, its manufacturing method, and contactor pair - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a fine contactor of high precision in which wear of contacting section is less and plastic deformation of spring part is small. <P>SOLUTION: The contactor is a fine conduction contactor of flat plate shape which is provided with a pair of tip parts for holding a contacting object, a support part for making support and electrical connection, and a pair of spring parts for linking each of the pair of tip parts with the support part. When the tip part is pressed against the contacting object, the contacting object is clipped between the pair of tip parts and the contacting object is held by elastic deformation of the spring part and contacted by sliding. The aspect ratio as expressed by thickness T/width W at the spring part is 0.1-50. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to a contactor used for electrical connection and a manufacturing method thereof, and more particularly to a contactor pair capable of sliding contact between contacts having the same shape and the same size.

  A contactor used for electrical connection with an electric wire or a printed circuit board includes a tip part that comes into contact with a contacted part and a spring part for obtaining contact force, and each of these parts is made of one material. Various aspects are known, such as those constituted by the above, and those in which the spring part and other parts are constituted by two kinds of members.

  FIG. 6 illustrates a tuning fork contact. As shown in FIG. 6, when a male half-square flat plate 62, a round flat plate, or a printed wiring board is press-fitted into the female tuning fork contact 61 in the direction of the arrow, the tuning fork contact 61 As a result, the flat plate 62 is brought into pressure contact and becomes conductive. The tuning fork contactor is relatively high in mass productivity because a plate-like body having a spring property can be manufactured only by punching and bending is not required (see Non-Patent Document 1).

  Many contacts consist of a pair of male and female types, but there are contacts of the same shape and the same size without distinction between male and female, an example of which is shown in FIG. . As shown in FIG. 7A, when one contactor 71a is press-fitted into the other contactor 71b having the same shape and the same size in the direction indicated by the arrow in an inverted posture, 71a and 71b are in pressure contact with each other and are conducted. FIG. 7B shows a state when connected (see Non-Patent Document 1). When connecting contacts having spring properties to each other, there is an advantage of multipoint contact and high electrical conductivity. In the example of FIG. 7B, four points are in contact at the position indicated by the arrow. In addition, when the pair of contacts have the same shape and the same size, it is possible to simplify the manufacturing process and reduce the types of parts by unifying the molds.

  FIG. 8 shows another example of contacts having the same shape and the same size without distinguishing between male and female dies. As shown to Fig.8 (a), this contact 80a is provided with the contact part 82a which contacts an other party contact, and is provided with the connection part 84a which connects an electric wire to the other side. The contact portion 82a is disposed at an angle of 45 ° with respect to the connecting portion 83a that connects the contact portion 82a and the connecting portion 84a. Moreover, the 2nd slit 85a is formed in the connection part 84a, and electric wires (not shown), such as a cable, are press-fit (refer patent document 1).

The same slit 86b of the counterpart contact 80b is inserted into the first slit 86a of the contact portion 82a and pressed. FIG. 8B shows the state after the pressure contact. As shown in FIG. 8B, the contact portions 82a and 82b of the pair of contacts 80a and 80b form an angle of 90 °. Further, when two electric wires are press-fitted into the second slits 85a and 85b formed in the connection portions 84a and 84b of the pair of contacts 80a and 80b, the two electric wires are arranged coaxially with each other. Furthermore, since the contacts 80a and 80b can be integrally formed by punching and bending from a sheet metal material, they can be easily manufactured.
JP 2000-21485 A "Connector Latest Technology '99", Japan Advanced Technology, p. 4-7

  However, conventional contacts are manufactured by punching, regardless of whether they are tuning fork-type contacts or contacts of the same shape and size without distinguishing between male and female types. The spring part has a large elastic constant and is relatively hard as a spring. Further, because of the punching process, only a contact having a plate-like body with a thickness of 100 μm or less and a small aspect ratio can be obtained. Therefore, when the contact is press-fitted and connected, a contact portion of the contact is easily deformed, and the spring portion is also easily plastically deformed. In addition, when connection and disconnection are repeated, the portion that comes into contact with the contacted object wears, so that the connection strength tends to decrease.

  Furthermore, since the elastic constant of the spring part in the contactor is large and the spread likelihood of the spring part is narrow, if the position where the contactor is pressed is shifted, the load required for fitting changes, the fitting state changes, and the contact It may happen that the child cannot connect. Therefore, high accuracy is required for mounting the contact, but since the contact is manufactured by punching, there is a problem that the accuracy of the contact is low.

  An object of the present invention is to provide a high-precision fine contactor with little wear at a contact portion and small plastic deformation of a spring portion, and a method for manufacturing the same. Furthermore, it is providing the contactor pair which those contacts contact by sliding.

The contact of the present invention includes a pair of tip portions for gripping an object to be contacted,
A support for providing support and electrical connection;
A plate-shaped fine conductive contact provided with a pair of spring portions for connecting each of the pair of tip portions to the support portion,
When the tip is pressed against the object to be contacted, the object to be contacted is sandwiched between a pair of tip parts, the object to be contacted is gripped by the elastic deformation of the spring part, and is in sliding contact. ,
The aspect ratio represented by thickness T / width W in the spring portion is 0.1 to 50.

  It is preferable that the support portion has a columnar stopper that is oriented toward the tip portion between the pair of spring portions, and the stopper preferably has a flat tip shape.

The method of the present invention is a method for manufacturing such a contact, and according to the first aspect,
Forming a resin mold by lithography;
Forming a layer made of a metal material on a resin mold by electroforming on a conductive substrate;
Polishing or grinding, and
Removing the resin mold;
And a step of removing the conductive substrate.

The method of the present invention is a method of manufacturing such a contact, and according to the second aspect,
Forming a resin mold with a mold;
Forming a layer made of a metal material on a resin mold by electroforming on a conductive substrate;
Polishing or grinding, and
Removing the resin mold;
And a step of removing the conductive substrate.

  The contact pair of the present invention has a support portion for a counterpart contact between a pair of tip portions of the contact when the contact is pressed against a counterpart contact having the same shape and the same dimensions as the contact. Is configured such that the support portion of the contact is sandwiched between the pair of tip portions of the counterpart contact, and the counterpart contact is gripped by the elastic deformation of the spring portion of the contact and is in sliding contact. It is characterized by that.

  In the contact according to the present invention, the wear of the portion that comes into contact with the connected object is small, and the spring portion is also less likely to undergo plastic deformation. In addition, according to the present invention, it is possible to provide a highly accurate fine contact that is easy to design a terminal.

(Contact)
A typical example of the contact according to the present invention is shown in FIGS. 1 is a front view, and FIG. 2 is a perspective view. The contactor includes a pair of tip portions 1 and 21 for gripping an object to be contacted, a support portion 3 and 23 for supporting and electrically connecting, and a pair of tip portions 1 and 21. It is a flat microcontact provided with a pair of spring portions 2 and 22 for connecting to the support portions 3 and 23. When the tip parts 1 and 21 are pressed against the object to be contacted, the object to be contacted is sandwiched between the pair of tip parts 1 and 21, the object to be contacted is gripped by the elastic deformation of the spring parts 2 and 22, It is configured to be in dynamic contact, and has an aspect ratio expressed by thickness T / width W of spring portions 2 and 22 of 0.1 to 50, and is used for obtaining an electrical connection Contactor.

  The conventional contact manufactured by the punching method has an aspect ratio of the spring portion of 0.1 or less, whereas the contact of the present invention has an aspect ratio of the spring portion of 0.1 to 50. For this reason, a soft spring with a small elastic constant can be obtained by narrowing the width W and increasing the thickness T as compared with the conventional product. Therefore, since the elastic limit displacement can be increased while maintaining the contact force of the contacted object, the deformation and wear at the contact point with the contacted object are reduced compared to the conventional contact that is pressed with a strong pressure. It is possible to avoid the plastic deformation by reducing the elastic deformation region of the spring portion.

  Such a contact having an aspect ratio of 0.1 to 50, more preferably 0.1 to 5 has a high reliability of electrical continuity with an object to be contacted and a wide elastic deformation region. In addition, if such a contact is used, the contact force with the contacted object can be set to 1 mN to 50 mN and the mounting accuracy is reduced in terms of improving the reliability of electrical continuity with the contacted object. Therefore, the elastic limit displacement amount can be set to 10 μm to 100 μm in terms of increasing the likelihood of spreading of the spring.

  As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, it is preferable that the support portions 3 and 23 have columnar stoppers 4 and 24 oriented toward the tip portions 1 and 21 between the pair of spring portions 2 and 22. . By forming the stopper, the total length after connection can be arbitrarily adjusted. Moreover, the spring part can be extended while keeping the entire length at the time of connection constant, and the spread likelihood of the spring part can be increased. Since the stopper also functions as a contact for electrical connection, it is preferable that the tip is flat in order to increase the effectiveness as an electrical contact.

The contact of the present invention is a microstructure, and as shown in FIG. 2, the total length L ₁ can be 200 μm to 2500 μm, the front width W ₁ can be 100 μm to 600 μm, and the thickness T can be 40 μm to 500 μm. Therefore, it is possible to cope with narrow pitch and high density mounting. As shown in FIG. 1 (a) and an enlarged view of FIG. 1 (b), the tip of the contact is formed as follows if the outside of the tip of the tip 1 is rounded: It is preferable in that it can be prevented from being caught at the time of contact. From such a viewpoint, R ₁ is preferably 10 μm to 200 μm, and more preferably 30 μm to 150 μm.

Further, if the tip 1 has a rounded inner side, the object to be contacted is sandwiched between the pair of tips 1 when the tip 1 is pressed against the object to be contacted. It is preferable at the point which becomes easy to do. From such a viewpoint, R ₂ is preferably 30 μm to 300 μm, and more preferably 50 μm to 200 μm. As shown in FIG. 1C, which is an enlarged view, the connecting portion of the spring portion 2 and the support portion 3 can reduce the stress concentrated on the base of the spring portion 2 when connected, as shown in FIG. This is preferable. From such a viewpoint, R ₃ is preferably 10 μm to 200 μm, and more preferably 30 μm to 150 μm. The same applies to the connecting portion 5 in FIG.

  As shown to Fig.1 (a), the space | interval G of a pair of front-end | tip parts 1 has a preferable dimension slightly shorter than the thickness of a to-be-contacted object. Specifically, the interval G can be set to several tens μm to several hundreds μm. The support portion 3 having the substrate mounting stoppers 6a and 6b is preferable in terms of improving workability when the contact is mounted on the substrate. Further, as shown in FIG. 1A, the support portion 3 has an electrical connection portion 7 such as a notch, which improves workability and connection reliability when connecting to a substrate with a solder ball or the like. Is preferable.

  The contact material of the present invention is excellent in spring characteristics such as toughness, has good electrical conductivity, and is suitable for production by the LIGA (Lithographie Galvanoformung Abformung) method described later, such as nickel or nickel manganese. The nickel alloy is preferred. When heat resistance is required, a nickel manganese alloy is suitable. Further, the crystal grain size of nickel or the like is preferably 50 nm or less from the viewpoint of increasing the spring strength and elastic limit of the contact.

  A mode in which a coat layer made of a noble metal such as gold, rhodium or palladium or an alloy of noble metal is preferably provided on the surface of the contact in terms of enhancing electrical contact and corrosion resistance. In addition, it is preferable to form a coat layer made of conductive diamond-like carbon, CrN or TiN on the surface of the contact in terms of improving wear resistance.

  In the contact pair of the present invention, when the above-described contact is pressed against a counterpart contact of the same shape and the same size, the support portion of the counterpart contact is sandwiched between a pair of tip portions of the contact. The support portion of the contact is sandwiched between a pair of tip portions of the counterpart contact, and the counterpart contact is gripped by the elastic deformation of the spring portion of the contact and is configured to be in sliding contact. Features. FIG. 3 shows a perspective view of a typical contact pair of the present invention.

  The contact of the present invention has no distinction between a male type and a female type, and can form a contact pair with a counterpart contact of the same shape and size. If one of the pair of contact pairs has a spring property, it can be used as a contact pair. However, if both of the contact pairs have a spring property, they become multi-point contacts and become conductive. It is preferable in that the property becomes high. Further, since they have the same shape and the same dimensions, it is advantageous in that the manufacturing process can be simplified and the types of parts can be reduced by unifying the molds.

(Manufacturing method of contact)
The contactor manufacturing method of the present invention includes a step of forming a resin mold by lithography, a step of forming a layer made of a metal material on a resin mold on a conductive substrate by electroforming, a step of polishing or grinding, and a resin The method includes a step of removing the mold and a step of removing the conductive substrate. By this method, a contact having an aspect ratio of 0.1 to 50 can be easily manufactured. Moreover, in machining such as punching, only an accuracy of about ± 10 μm can be obtained, but according to the method of the present invention, a highly accurate contact of ± 1 μm can be manufactured with good reproducibility and the material composition is uniform. It is. Therefore, the spring characteristics can be kept uniform. In addition, it is possible to reduce variations in the overall length, and avoid situations such as excessive load at the time of connection or inability to obtain a connection. Furthermore, since the fine structure can be integrally formed, the number of parts can be reduced, and the part cost and the assembly cost can be reduced.

  In the manufacturing method of the present invention, a resin layer 42 is first formed on a conductive substrate 41 as shown in FIG. As the conductive substrate, for example, a metal substrate made of copper, nickel, stainless steel, or the like can be used. Alternatively, a silicon substrate on which a metal material such as titanium or chromium is sputtered can be used. For the resin layer, a resin material mainly composed of polymethacrylate such as polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), or a chemically amplified resin material sensitive to ultraviolet rays (UV) or X-rays is used. The thickness of the resin layer can be arbitrarily set according to the thickness of the contact to be formed, and can be, for example, 40 μm to 500 μm.

  Next, a mask 43 is disposed on the resin material 42, and UV or X-ray 44 is irradiated through the mask 43. In the production method of the present invention, it is preferable to use X-rays (wavelength 0.4 nm) having a shorter wavelength than UV (wavelength 200 nm) in that a contact having a high aspect ratio is obtained. Further, it is more preferable to use synchrotron radiation X-ray (hereinafter referred to as “SR”) having high directivity among X-rays. The LIGA method using SR enables deep lithography, and can manufacture a large number of contacts having a thickness of several hundreds of micrometers with high accuracy on the order of microns.

  The mask 43 includes an absorbing layer 43a such as UV or X-ray 44 formed according to the contact pattern, and a translucent substrate 43b. Silicon nitride, silicon, diamond, titanium, or the like is used for the translucent substrate 43b. The absorption layer 43a is made of heavy metal such as gold, tungsten, or tantalum or a compound thereof. Of the resin layer 42, the resin layer 42a of the resin layer 42 is exposed and deteriorated by the irradiation of the X-ray 44, but the resin layer 42b is not exposed by the absorption layer 43a. For this reason, in the case of a positive type resin, only the part that has been altered (molecular chain is cut) is removed by development, and a resin type comprising a resin layer 42b as shown in FIG. 4B is obtained.

  Next, electroforming is performed, and as shown in FIG. 4C, a metal material layer 45 is deposited on the resin mold. Electroforming refers to forming a layer made of a metal material on a conductive substrate using a metal ion solution. By performing electroforming using the conductive substrate 41 as a plating electrode, the metal material layer 45 can be deposited on the resin mold made of the resin layer 42b. When the metal material layer 45 is deposited to such an extent that the resin-type holes are filled, the contact of the present invention can be finally obtained from the deposited metal material layer. Further, when a metal material is deposited on the resin mold exceeding the height of the resin mold, the resin microstructure and the substrate 41 are removed to obtain a metal microstructure having pores, and the obtained structure Can be effectively used in the method of manufacturing a contact according to the present invention using a mold described later.

  After electroforming, when a predetermined thickness is obtained by polishing or grinding, a metal microstructure as shown in FIG. 4 (d) is obtained. Thereafter, as shown in FIG. 4E, the resin mold is removed by wet etching or plasma etching. Subsequently, when the conductive substrate 41 is removed by wet etching with acid or alkali, or by machining, the contact according to the present invention as shown in FIG. 4F can be obtained. The obtained contact can be coated with a coat layer made of gold having a thickness of 0.05 μm to 1 μm, if necessary.

  Other aspects of the method for manufacturing a contact according to the present invention include a step of forming a resin mold by a mold, a step of forming a layer made of a metal material on the resin mold on a conductive substrate by electroforming, and polishing or grinding And a step of removing the resin mold and a step of removing the conductive substrate. Also according to this method, a contact having an aspect ratio of 0.1 to 50, high accuracy, and uniform material composition and spring characteristics can be easily manufactured in the same manner as the above-described manufacturing method of forming a resin mold by lithography. be able to. For this reason, excessive stress can be suppressed. Further, since the fine structure can be integrally formed, the number of parts can be reduced, and the part cost and the assembly cost can be reduced. Furthermore, it is possible to mass-produce contacts using the same mold.

  As shown in FIG. 5 (a), such a manufacturing method uses a mold 52 having a convex portion to form a concave shape as shown in FIG. 5 (b) by a mold such as emboss molding, reactive molding or injection molding. The resin mold 53 is formed. As the resin, a thermoplastic resin such as an acrylic resin such as polymethyl methacrylate, a polyurethane resin, or a polyacetal resin such as polyoxymethylene is used. Since the mold 52 is a metal microstructure similar to the contact according to the present invention, it is preferable to manufacture the mold 52 by the above-described method combining a lithography method and electroforming.

  Next, after the resin mold 53 is turned upside down, it is attached to the conductive substrate 51 as shown in FIG. Subsequently, as shown in FIG. 5D, the resin mold 53 is polished to form the resin mold 53a. Thereafter, as described above, a metal material layer 55 is deposited on the resin mold 53a by electroforming (FIG. 5 (e)), and after adjusting the thickness by polishing or grinding (FIG. 5 (f)), the resin mold 53a Is removed (FIG. 5G), and the conductive substrate 51 is removed, the contact according to the present invention as shown in FIG. 5H is obtained.

Example 1
First, as shown in FIG. 4A, the resin layer 42 was formed on the conductive substrate 41. As the conductive substrate, a silicon substrate obtained by sputtering titanium was used. As a material for forming the resin layer, a copolymer of methyl methacrylate and methacrylic acid was used, and the thickness of the resin layer was 120 μm.

  Next, a mask 43 was placed on the resin layer 42, and X-rays 44 were irradiated through the mask 43. SR was irradiated as X-rays. As the mask 43, a mask having an absorption layer 43a having a contact pattern was used. The translucent substrate 43b was made of silicon nitride, and the absorbing layer 43a was made of tungsten nitride.

  After irradiation with X-rays 44, development with methyl isobutyl ketone was performed, and when a portion altered by X-rays 44 was removed, a resin mold composed of a resin layer 42b as shown in FIG. 4B was obtained. Next, electroforming was performed, and a metal material layer 45 was deposited in the resin mold holes (FIG. 4C). Nickel was used as the metal material.

  After electroforming, polishing is performed to remove surface irregularities, the thickness of the contactor is adjusted to 100 μm (FIG. 4D), and the resin mold made of the resin layer 42b is removed by oxygen plasma (FIG. 4E). )). Subsequently, wet etching was performed with an aqueous KOH solution, and the conductive substrate 41 was removed to obtain a contact as shown in FIG.

  The obtained contact is shown in FIG. 1 and FIG. The contactor includes a pair of tip portions 1 and 21 for gripping an object to be contacted, a support portion 3 and 23 for supporting and electrically connecting, and a pair of tip portions 1 and 21. It was a flat-plate fine conduction contact provided with a pair of spring parts 2 and 22 for connecting with support parts 3 and 23. In addition, when the tip portions 1 and 21 are pressed against the contacted object, the contactor sandwiches the contacted object between the pair of tip end portions 1 and 21 and elastically deforms the spring portions 2 and 22. The contact object is held and slidably contacted, and the aspect ratio represented by the thickness T / width W of the spring portions 2 and 22 is 10.

Further, the total length L ₁ is 2400 μm, the front width W ₁ is 500 μm, and the thickness T is 100 μm. The spring portion 2 had a length L of 1000 μm, a thickness T of 100 μm, and a width W of 10 μm. Tip 1 of the contactor, R ₁ is 40 [mu] m, R ₂ was 160 .mu.m. R ₃ of the connecting portion between the spring portion 2 and the support portion ₃ was 40 μm. The support portion 3 has a columnar stopper 4 that is oriented toward the tip portion between a pair of spring portions. The length of the stopper 4 in the longitudinal direction is 250 μm, and the tip of the stopper is planar. It was. Further, the gap G between the pair of tip portions 1 was 90 μm.

  It should be understood that the embodiments and examples disclosed herein are illustrative and non-restrictive in every respect. The scope of the present invention is defined by the terms of the claims, rather than the description above, and is intended to include any modifications within the scope and meaning equivalent to the terms of the claims.

  According to the present invention, it is possible to provide a high-precision fine contact with less wear of the contact portion and less plastic deformation of the spring portion.

It is a front view of the contact of this invention. It is a perspective view of the contact of this invention. It is a perspective view of the contactor pair of this invention. It is process drawing which shows the manufacturing method of the contactor of this invention. It is process drawing which shows the manufacturing method of the contactor of this invention. It is a perspective view of the conventional tuning fork type contactor. It is a figure which shows the same shape and the same size contactor without the distinction of the conventional male type | mold and female type | mold. It is a figure which shows the same shape and the same size contactor without the distinction of the conventional male type | mold and female type | mold.

Explanation of symbols

  1,21 Tip, 2,22 Spring, 3,23 Support, 4,24 Stopper, 41,51 Conductive substrate, 53a Resin mold, 43 Mask, 44 X-ray, 45,55 Metal material layer, 52 Gold Type.

Claims (6)

A pair of tips for gripping the contacted object;
A support for providing support and electrical connection;
A flat microcontact having a pair of spring portions for connecting each of the pair of tip portions to the support portion,
When the tip is pressed against the contacted object, the contacted object is sandwiched between a pair of the tip, and the contacted object is gripped by the elastic deformation of the spring portion and is in sliding contact. Has been
The conductive contact according to claim 1, wherein an aspect ratio expressed by thickness T / width W in the spring portion is 0.1-50.   The contact according to claim 1, wherein the support portion includes a columnar stopper that is oriented toward the tip portion between the pair of spring portions.   The contact according to claim 2, wherein the stopper has a flat tip. It is a manufacturing method of the contact child in any one of Claims 1-3,
Forming a resin mold by lithography;
Forming a layer made of a metal material on the conductive mold by electroforming on a conductive substrate;
Polishing or grinding, and
Removing the resin mold;
And a step of removing the conductive substrate. It is a manufacturing method of the contact child in any one of Claims 1-3,
Forming a resin mold with a mold;
Forming a layer made of a metal material on the conductive mold by electroforming on a conductive substrate;
Polishing or grinding, and
Removing the resin mold;
And a step of removing the conductive substrate.   When the contact according to any one of claims 1 to 3 is pressed against a counterpart contact having the same shape and dimensions as the contact, the counterpart contact between a pair of tip portions of the contact The support portion of the contact is sandwiched between a pair of tip portions of the counterpart contact, and the counterpart contact is gripped by the elastic deformation of the spring portion of the contact, thereby sliding contact. A pair of contacts, characterized by being configured to do so.

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