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Card Edge Connector
Industrial, IT Datacom
PCIe 4.0 cards push 16 GT/s across lanes that were never meant to forgive sloppy footprints. At that speed, the connector is not just a mechanical holder — it is part of the signal path. A footprint that is off by a fraction of a millimeter, or a retention clip that fights the assembler, becomes a yield problem long before it becomes a field failure.
The CONSHARE PCIe 4.0 64Pin Eaves-Type Open Clip-in Socket was drawn around that reality. It is a straddle-mount, open-top clip-in socket for PCIe Gen4 x4 add-in cards where vertical clearance is tight and the board edge needs to slide in cleanly without fighting a closed hood.
The housing overhangs the contact field rather than wrapping around it from both sides. That eaves-style shape does two things: it lowers the effective height above the PCB and gives the card edge a clear entry path. For 1U servers, COM Express carriers, or any chassis where the add-in card sits close to the enclosure wall, that extra millimeter of headroom matters.
The open clip-in latch is shaped so the card edge presses straight down and clicks home. There is no closed hood to thread the edge through, no secondary lever to remember, and no risk of an operator partially seating the card because the retention mechanism was hard to reach. The 1.15 N max insertion force per contact pair keeps the feel light without making the connection tentative.
Because the terminals straddle the PCB edge rather than plunging through it, you keep both layers of the board free for signal routing under the connector. That matters on PCIe 4.0 designs where vias near the connector can stub traces and wreck impedance. The recommended PCB layout carries a ±0.05 mm tolerance, which is tight enough to keep differential pairs matched without forcing you into exotic fabrication.
The housing is LCP with 30% glass fill, rated UL94V-0 and stable enough for lead-free reflow. That is not a chemistry lesson — it means the body will not warp during assembly and will hold its dimensions across temperature swings from -25 °C to +85 °C. Black resin also cuts down on stray light reflection inside enclosures where photonics or sensing boards sit nearby.
Phosphor bronze terminals with a nickel underplate and 15 μin gold on the contact area hit a deliberate balance. The gold layer is thick enough for reliable low-level contact resistance in the field, while the solder tail area carries a tin finish that wets cleanly during reflow. The result is a 30 mΩ max contact resistance and a 1.1 A per-pin current rating that handles the sideband power and control lines without becoming the hot spot on the board.
The 50-cycle durability rating is conservative for a socket that is typically mated once during final test and then left in place. It is enough margin for rework, debug, and burn-in cycling without contact degradation.
Dimensional tolerances on the drawing are held to ±0.05 mm on critical mating features. We do not rely on incoming inspection to catch drift; the molding and stamping processes are monitored per lot, and first-article reports are available on request.
Gold plating thickness on PCIe contacts tends to be the first place suppliers quietly trim cost. CONSHARE specifies a minimum gold thickness on the contact zone and verifies it with XRF sampling. You get the same insertion force, the same contact resistance, and the same solderability whether you receive reels from this month or six months from now.
Each reel carries a lot code linked to raw-material certs, plating-bath records, and electrical-test summaries. If a field issue ever traces back to the connector, you can narrow it to a specific production run instead of questioning an entire product line.
This is the connector to specify when you are designing:
Edge AI accelerators on PCIe 4.0 x4 mezzanine cards where the socket must sit low and the card is swapped during model testing.
Industrial vision systems that vibrate and cycle temperature, because the clip-in retention holds better than a simple slide-in slot.
Network appliances and NIC cards where the card edge needs quick service access but cannot risk floating out of the socket.
COM Express or custom carrier boards that route high-speed lanes right up to the connector edge and need a straddle-mount footprint to preserve layer usage.
A typical deployment we see: a machine-vision OEM replaced a closed-hood PCIe socket with this open clip-in style and cut card-insertion related rework by roughly 40% during final assembly. The assembler no longer had to visually confirm full latching from the side because the click is positive and audible.
Gold thickness options from flash to 30 μin on the contact area
Tin or matte tin on solder tails
Tape-and-reel packaging and quantities
Optional locating posts if a future revision needs mechanical alignment pins
Halogen-free resin on request
Standard Au15u configuration ships in 4–6 weeks from order confirmation. Engineering samples for custom plating or packaging are usually available within 2 weeks.
Yes. The mechanical envelope and pinout follow the PCIe card electromechanical spec, so a Gen4 socket accepts Gen3 and Gen2 cards electrically and mechanically.
No. Open refers to the housing entry; the clip-in latch still provides positive retention. The 0.15 N minimum extraction force per contact pair ensures the card stays seated under normal shock and vibration.
This version is postless to maximize routing freedom directly beneath the connector. If your PCB process requires mechanical alignment, a posted variant can be tooled from the same base drawing.
The glass-filled LCP is compatible with standard lead-free reflow peaks up to 260 °C. We recommend keeping the connector in its sealed packaging until placement to avoid moisture absorption.
