JPH02304883A - Narrow pitch connector - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To narrow contact pitches by containing and holding an insulating crystal substrate in which a contact is formed either in the bottom of a groove or the upper plane of a diaphragm between neighboring grooves in a housing while setting front end plane to be in open side. CONSTITUTION:An insulating crystal substrate 1 in which a contact 3 of a conductive material is formed in the bottom of a groove 2 or the upper plane of a diaphragm between neighboring grooves is contained and hold in a housing 4 while the front end side 1a of the substrate 1 is set to be in an open part 5 side. A pattern of an etching-resistant material is formed on the insulating crystal substrate 1 by photolithographic method, and then anisotropic etching with slower etching speed in the side plane direction than in the depth direction of groove 2 is carried out. By this method, grooves having a prescribed constant width in an extremely narrow pitch are formed reproducibly.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION "Field of Industrial Application" This invention relates to a narrow pitch connector with narrow contact spacing.

"Conventional Technology" Conventional connectors have a body made of synthetic resin with contacts made of metal plates built into them.The body is made by molding, and the contacts are made by pressing.

"Problems to be Solved by the Invention" As mentioned above, conventional connectors have a structure in which the body and contacts are made separately and assembled together.
A mechanism for fixing the contacts was required, making the structure complicated. Also, because the body was made with a mold and the contacts were made with a press, it was difficult to narrow the pitch of the contacts.

An object of the present invention is to provide a narrow-pitch connector that has a simple structure and allows contacts to be easily pinched.

"Means for Solving the Problem" According to the present invention, a plurality of grooves are formed in parallel on at least one surface of an insulating crystalline substrate, one end of which reaches the front end surface,
These grooves have a slower etching rate in the lateral direction than in the depth direction, and contacts of a conductive material layer are formed on at least the bottom surfaces of these grooves or the upper surfaces of partitions between adjacent grooves, and these contacts are formed. An insulating crystalline substrate is housed and held in the housing with its front end surface facing toward the opening.

``Function'' It is extremely easy to assemble because a groove is formed in an insulating crystalline substrate, a contact is formed in this with a layer of conductive material, and the insulating crystalline substrate is incorporated into a housing. be. In addition, a pattern of etching-resistant material is formed on an insulating crystalline substrate using photolithography, and etching is performed on this pattern using anisotropic etching, in which the etching rate is slower in the lateral direction than in the depth direction of the groove. This makes it possible to create grooves of a constant width at extremely narrow pitches with good reproducibility.

"Embodiment" FIG. 1 shows the main part of an embodiment of this invention. The insulating crystalline substrate l is, for example, a (100) substrate of single crystal silicon, and a protective film is applied to the parts of the insulating crystalline substrate l other than the areas where grooves are to be formed by a photolithography process, and then alkali etching is applied. By performing anisotropic etching such as the above, a plurality of parallel grooves 2 having a regular shape determined by the crystallinity of silicon are formed. The etching speed for the side surfaces of these grooves 2 is slow, and the side surfaces of the grooves 2 are (111). One end of the groove 2 is made to reach the front end surface 1a of the insulating crystalline substrate 1.

A conductive material such as gold is attached to the bottom and side surfaces of these grooves 2 by a method such as vapor deposition, and then heat treatment is performed to perform solid phase diffusion at the interface between silicon and gold to form a firmly attached contact 3. . In this example, a terminal portion 3a is formed at the same time from the rear end of the groove 2, continuing with the contact 3 and extending rearward on the plate surface of the substrate 1. The thickness of the contact 3 varies depending on the current capacity, but is generally 0.5 μm.
It is considered to be a degree.

As shown in FIG. 2, an insulating crystalline substrate 1 having contacts 3 formed thereon is housed and held in a housing 4 made of synthetic resin. In this case, the front end surface 1a of the insulating crystalline substrate 1 is positioned on the opening 5 side of the housing 4. In this example, both side surfaces of the insulating crystalline substrate 1 are anisotropically etched to form (111) so that they are slightly sharpened, and the sharpness is used to position and engage the inner surface of the housing 4.

The mating connector 6 is composed of a fork-shaped contact 8 held in a body 7 made of an insulating material. The pitch of the fork-shaped contacts 8 is made equal to the pitch of the grooves 2, and the fork-shaped contacts 8 are inserted into the grooves 2 so as to sandwich both bottom surfaces of the opposing grooves 2 on both sides of the insulating crystalline substrate 1. 8 are connected to each other. During this connection, guide pins 9 are provided at both ends of the front surface of the body 7 to protrude beyond the contacts 8 in order to position the contacts, and a hole 10 into which the guide pins 9 are inserted is formed on the front surface of the housing 4. During bonding, the insulating crystalline substrate 1 is connected to the contact 8
Prevent damage caused by.

FIG. 3 shows another embodiment of the invention, in which parts corresponding to those in FIG. 2 are given the same reference numerals. In this example, contacts 3 are formed on the upper surface of partition wall 11 between adjacent grooves 2 . The mating connector 6 becomes a leaf-shaped contact 12.

In the example shown in FIG. 1, the contact 3 may be formed only on the bottom surface of the groove 2.

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, according to the present invention, the contacts 3 are formed on the insulating crystalline substrate 1 and then assembled into the housing 4, so the assembly work is extremely simple.

Grooves 2 are formed in an insulating crystalline substrate l using photolithography technology and anisotropic etching technology, and ? Since the contacts 3 are formed by vapor-depositing metal within f42 or on the partition wall ll and heat-treating it, a narrow-pinch connector with extremely high dimensional accuracy can be manufactured with good reproducibility. For example, in the example shown in FIG. 1, the pinch of the contact 3 is assumed to be 0.3 ml11, but a pitch of 0.1 ml or less is also possible. Furthermore, the processing accuracy can be reduced to several μm or less. Note that the mating connector, for example, the fork-shaped contact 8, can also be microfabricated by etching a metal plate.

Further, by using the groove structure, insulation isolation between the contacts 3 is reliably performed.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a perspective view showing the main parts of an embodiment of the present invention, Fig. 2 is a perspective view showing an embodiment of the invention to which the main parts of Fig. 1 are applied and its mating connector, and Fig. 3 is a perspective view showing the main parts of the invention. It is a perspective view which shows another Example and its mating connector.

Claims (1)

[Claims] (1) A plurality of parallel grooves are formed on at least one surface of the insulating crystalline substrate, one end of which reaches the front end face, and the etching rate of these grooves is slower in the side direction than in the depth direction; Contacts made of a conductive material layer are formed on at least the bottom surface of the housing or the top surface of the partition between adjacent grooves, and the insulating crystalline substrate on which these contacts are formed is housed and held in the housing with its front end side as the open side. Narrow pitch connector.