THE SAMTEC BLOG
-
Decoding PCIe: Controlling the PCIe Channel
Decoding PCIe: A Mechanical Engineer’s View Part 2 In the first part of this series, I tried to understand why PCIe becomes more difficult as speeds increase. The conclusion was not especially dramatic. As edge rates rise and margins shrink, the physical layer becomes harder to ignore. In this instalment,…
-
VNX+ Transforms Small Form Factor Embedded Landscape
The embedded computing industry has reached a major milestone with the ratification of the ANSI/VITA 90 (VNX+) family of standards. Announced on February 19, 2026, by VITA, this new standard represents a significant leap forward in compact, rugged, high‑performance embedded design. Samtec interconnects were selected for the VNX+ VITA 90…
-
Samtec Tradeshows, March 2026
This is a busy month for Samtec tradeshows and conferences, with two of our largest shows of the year in March. We’re excited to exhibit at Embedded World to show our comprehensive line of interconnects for embedded applications. OFC showcases our next-generation silicon-to-silicon interconnect systems, including 224 and 448 Gbps…
-
Try Our Newly Upgraded Environmental Compliance Certificate Download Tool
Recently, we rolled out a major update to our Environmental Compliance Download tool to support 19 different document types. Previous to this update, there were only three document types supported. We worked closely with our environmental compliance team to get access to the data source where these documents live, and…
-
Samtec Expands India Reach
“Watch our for the curry!” That’s a warning I get from well-intentioned friends and family when I travel to India. Thanks, I guess. Personally, I love the local food from Ahmedabad in the north, to Bengaluru in the south, or the unique Portuguese influence in Goa on the Arabian Sea….
-
Samtec Achieves CMMC Level 2 Certification
I discovered that Samtec was pursuing CMMC certification when I met with a member of our internal CMMC team, who explained the internal review process of our blogs. I knew little about the certification at the time, but I have since learned that it’s a rigorous, thorough program designed to…
-
Decoding PCIe: A Mechanical Engineer’s View
PCIe is not an area where I would claim deep expertise. My background is mechanical, and most of my day-to-day work focuses on connectors, materials, and geometry rather than protocol specifications. However, PCIe is very important to Samtec. We are involved in shaping the interface itself, and many of our…
-
Compliance | Culture | News
Samtec Solar Power: Going (and Saving) Green
Samtec’s Costa Rica facility recently completed its photovoltaic renewable energy project. After eight months of planning, setup and installation, another Samtec solar power system is now operational. The projected output of the system will account for roughly 28 percent of the high-speed cable manufacturing and electroplating plant’s total yearly…
-
Here are the January 2026 Website Updates to Samtec.com
January is always a busy month for the web team. As the trade show season is in full force and as we release updates that were being worked on in Q4, this January was no different. We released several updates to the Industry Standards and Dev Kits section, expanded our…
-
Samtec at DesignCon 2026
Connect with Samtec experts at DesignCon 2026 to learn about new and established products and technologies that support data rates up to 448 Gbps and signals up to 130 GHz. As you work on your new designs, Samtec can help you find the optimal interconnect solution–whether it be copper or…
-
Request Your Samtec Free Samples Faster Than Ever Before
A few months back I wrote about our new free sample request form, which at that point was in a soft-release state. Today, I’m happy to announce that this new sample request form is now fully released and functional on Samtec.com. Let’s review the features and how this makes your…
-
February Tradeshows
February is a big month for Samtec tradeshows. We only exhibit at two shows, but one of them is DesignCon 2026, where we introduce our newest and most cutting-edge products and technologies. DesignCon 2026 February 24 – 26 | Santa Clara, CA | DesignCon Website Visit Samtec in Booth #939…
-
Bishop: 2025 In Review, and 2026 Connector Industry Forecast
We regularly catch up with our friends at Bishop and Associates to share their perspective on the connector industry. Bishop is a leading market research firm for the global electronic connector industry. In this Q&A session, we asked about last year’s results, and they shared their 2026 connector forecast and…
-
Connectors for Quantum Computing
Designing Interconnects at the Edge of Performance For decades, improvements in computing performance have followed a familiar path. Faster processors, denser packaging, and higher data rates have driven steady advances across data centers, high-performance computing, and supercomputing platforms. Today, quantum computing represents the most extreme point on that curve. Although…
-
112 Gbps PAM4 Near Package Optics for Next-Gen HPC Applications
This live product demonstration, at SC25, features the Samtec Halo® near package optics system. It’s ideal for next-generation HPC Applications. Halo is a mid-board optical transceiver, designed for next-generation embedded applications that require either 112 or 56 Gbps PAM4 performance. Looking at the demo, an EXFO BERT generates a 112…
-
The Coolest Website Updates in 2025 to Samtec.com
I’m not ready to let 2025 go just yet. It was a great year for Samtec.com as we continued to upgrade the website with new features, additional applications, user-experience updates, and more. Here were the coolest updates to Samtec.com in 2025. Full Refresh of The Samtec Blog In January 2025,…
-
Samtec to Participate in Upcoming Webinars
New years lead to new goals. As an technologist, I always need to stay on the bleeding edge. That’s require constant diligence, and it can be quite a challenge. Webinars always help. As the calendar flips into 2026 new products, industry standards, design techniques and more are coming down the…
-
200G Co-Packaged Channel With Broadcom SERDES and Samtec Si-Fly HD CPC
A live product demonstration from SC25 showcases Samtec’s Si-Fly HD co-packaged copper, or CPC, which boasts the industry’s highest footprint density, enabling 102.4T. That’s 512 lanes at 200G in a 95 x 95 mm chip substrate. It’s designed for a wide range of data center, high-performance computing, artificial intelligence, hyperscale, and machine…
-
New Year, New Innovations & A Look Back at 2025
At Samtec, our mission is to deliver innovative interconnect solutions that meet the evolving needs of high-performance systems. To make it easier to navigate our broad portfolio, we organize our offerings into what we call solution blocks: High-Speed Board-to-Board, Optics, High-Speed Cable, RF, Rugged/Power, and Flexible Stacking. Each solution block…
-
Boxing Day
‘Wait, you’re off again?’ In the run-up to Christmas, we’re all getting ready for the big day. But in the UK, and in many other countries around the world, Christmas Day is just the beginning. Every December, I have the same small moment of confusion with some of my US…
-
Samtec’s Best Connector Blogs of 2025
I love end-of-the-year lists. My favorites are topics like “Top News Stories of the Year,” “Top Moments in the World of Sports,” and, without sounding morbid, “Notable Deaths This Year.” In that spirit, here is a list of Samtec’s best connector blogs of 2025. How do we define “best?” It’s…
-
The Importance of Second Sourcing
The events of the last decade have taught (or re-taught) us many lessons about the value of supply chain security. An unprecedented increase in demand, coupled with the challenge of an overstressed supply network, created huge problems for component users as they tackled availability problems. In the world of connectors,…
-
Samtec’s Top Selling Connectors of 2025
Every couple of years, I write an end-of-the-year blog that lists Samtec’s top-selling connectors. The blogs have always been popular, but I prefer not to write about subjects I’ve previously covered. Then I started thinking, maybe this year, instead of listing Samtec’s top-selling connectors, I should compile a list of…
-
Here are the November 2025 Website Updates to Samtec.com
This month, we continued to improve the user experience in several key applications of the website, including our Tech Specs pages, Global Solutionator, My Samtec, and our on-site Search. These updates will set the stage for several exciting updates we have planned for 2026 and beyond. Here were the major…
-
Top Samtec Technologies for 2025
Glass, Nitrowave, Optics, and Co-Packaged Connectivity The interconnect industry continues to evolve at an incredible pace. Each year, bandwidth demands climb, signal rates increase, and packaging complexity grows. For 2025, four technologies caught my eye that I would like to share here, in case you missed them: Glass Core Technology…
-
Innovative Interconnect Solutions in OCP OAI Chassis
Artificial Intelligence is advancing quickly, driving the development of a wide range of new hardware accelerators for Scale-up, Scale-out, High-Performance Computing, and more. Samtec collaborates closely with customers and partners to develop innovative interconnect solutions tailored to real-world AI acceleration topologies. The OCP Open Accelerator Infrastructure, or OCP OAI, is one…
-
Staying Connected at Thanksgiving
As a geek by inclination and a Brit by geography, I have a reputation for being keen on a well-made connection. There’s something quietly satisfying about knowing that when two things fit together properly, current flows cleanly, signals stay strong, and everything just works. But after several years of writing…
-
Staying in Step: The Science and Art of Phase Matched Cables
If there’s one thing high-frequency engineers know all too well, it’s that radio waves are fussy. When a signal operates in the gigahertz range, it becomes delicate. It demands precise timing, perfect alignment, and absolutely no unexpected delays. When several of these signals must arrive together, the challenge becomes one…
-
Robotic Knights Need Rugged Interconnects
Besides its appeal to science fiction, humanoid robotics is an intriguing area in real world design that is growing at an impressive rate: The global humanoid robot market is projected to reach about $58.95 billion by 2031, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 50% [1]. The concept is…
-
Slim, High-Density Connectors: New Stack Heights and Pin Counts
Samtec’s ADM6 and ADF6, AcceleRate® HD array connectors—known for their slim profile and high-density 0.635 mm pitch—are now available with expanded stack height options ranging from 5 mm to 16 mm and pin counts from 40 to 400 positions. The product offering expansion allows design flexibility with quick delivery, supporting…
-
Power Integrity Certified
Raising the Standard for Power Interconnects When engineers talk about system performance, signal integrity usually gets the headlines. Without clean, reliable signals, nothing works as it should. But as we’ve seen before, behind every flawless waveform lies power integrity. It’s the quiet, dependable partner that keeps everything running smoothly. Without…
-
Mezzanine Stacking Connectors for Mixed Signal Applications
Mixed signal applications—where sensing, processing and power delivery coexist—have become common due to the rapid growth of wireless communication and sensors in complex electronics systems. Whether in aerospace, automotive, or high-performance computing, designers face the challenge of maintaining signal integrity, minimizing noise, and optimizing layout across differing types of signal…
-
SC25 and Samtec: New Products, Technologies, Next-Gen Performance
We’re looking forward to SC25. SC25 is the international event for high-performance computing, networking, storage, and analysis. Samtec will present its full line of high-performance connectors for HPCs, including 224 Gbps PAM4 solutions, 112 Gbps mid-board optical transceivers, and PCIe 7.0 interconnect systems, among others. Here’s a quick recap of what…
-
Understanding Protocols: The Language Behind Modern Electronics
In the electronics industry, standards and protocols go hand in hand — yet they serve distinct roles in how devices connect and communicate. As covered in Standards vs. Protocols: An Engineer’s Guide and Industry Standards in Electronics, standards define the physical, mechanical, and performance expectations for components and systems. Protocols,…
-
Here are the October 2025 Website Updates to Samtec.com
This month, we rolled out an updated sample request form, several user experience upgrades to My Samtec and our Checkout process, a new way to find full mated sets on our product pages, and a few new content updates to various areas of the website. Here are the major website…
-
Try the New Free Sample Request Form on Samtec.com
Samtec is well-known for its 24-hour free sample program, and it’s been this way since our founding in 1976. Users can request a sample on our website and have it in their hands in as little as a single day, which is almost as great as our free stuffed tigers…
-
Medical Equipment
We’ve reached the final installment of our journey through the latest medical technology. In the years since we last explored this area, the world of medical equipment has evolved dramatically. Devices are smarter, more connected, and more widely deployed than ever before. From traditional hospital machines to portable carts, robotic…
-
Samtec Trade Shows In November, 2025
SC25 (Super Computing) headlines a busy list of Samtec trade shows and conferences in November. From high-powered computers to embedded computers and systems to nuclear science to RF and microwave, we’ve got a busy month. SC 25 (Super Computing) November 17 – 20 | St. Louis, MO, USA | website SC25…
-
Software Defined Radio Made Easier
Software defined radio (SDR) requirements are starting to exceed the performance capabilities of many traditional RF components. This challenge invites RF system architects to select connectors that were originally designed to meet the demanding signal integrity specifications of high-speed digital applications. This blog highlights some key details from a recent…
-
Choosing Impedance
Over the last few weeks, we have been looking at impedance. We began by talking about what impedance is and how we might visualize it. We then considered the physical characteristics of the signal chain, and how they govern impedance. In this final part, we will look at why impedance…
