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Card Edge Connector
Industrial, IT Datacom
Most PCIe card-edge connectors look identical in a catalog. They aren't. The reason an engineering team pulls a card concept past three prototypes and still gets intermittent link training at Gen3 speeds usually comes down to three things: insufficient contact normal force, lossy housing at high data rates, and a slot that loses retention after thermal cycling. The PCIe 3.0 98P Low-Angle Clamp-Type Connector with Screw-Lock from CONSHARE is engineered around those three failure modes, not around a generic spec sheet.
This is a 98-position edge-card slot built for PCIe x8 lane mapping, with a 1.00mm contact pitch housing that measures 56.0mm across the body and 5.05mm in stack height. The board-side footprint is designed for 1.60mm PCB thickness, so it drops directly into standard server, embedded computing, and industrial backplane stack-ups without re-spinning your layout.
The housing is LCP reinforced with 30% glass fiber, rated UL94 V-0. That isn't a spec you sell, it's a spec you avoid fighting later. LCP at this glass content holds dielectric stability up through 260°C reflow and keeps Df low enough not to eat your eye budget at 8 GT/s. The black resin is chosen over standard nylon for a reason: LCP absorbs roughly an order of magnitude less moisture, so your slot doesn't drift in insertion force after six months in a humid warehouse or on a tropical shipping lane. For boards that ship into Southeast Asia, Brazil, or coastal logistics chains, this is the difference between a six-month field failure and a stable product.
Contacts are 0.25mm copper alloy, which gives the spring section real travel without going plastic before the contact normal force rating. The barrel is plated with 50µ" minimum nickel underplate, then gold over the contact area (selectable from flash up to 15µ") and tin in the solder tail region. That dual-plating strategy is what keeps the solder joint wettable for lead-free reflow while keeping the mating zone low-resistance.
Region | Plating | Functional Reason |
|---|---|---|
Mating contact zone | Gold (Flash to 15µ") | Low contact resistance, oxidation resistance |
Solder tail | Tin 100µ" min | Lead-free reflow wettability |
Underplate | Nickel 50µ" min | Diffusion barrier, prevents copper migration |
The card entry mouth is sized to a 0.85mm contact gap with ±0.25mm tolerance, opening up to a 7.35mm slot depth. That spread is what lets the connector accept a wide range of card edge thicknesses without forcing the mating partner to spec exotic PCB stack-ups. The internal contact zone uses a 1.40mm insertion depth before the canted spring fingers fully engage, which gives a defined handoff point during mating and a stable final contact position once the card is fully seated.
Numbers below are per contact, not in aggregate. For a 98-pin connector, aggregate behavior compounds fast.
Parameter | Rating | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
Current rating | 1.1A per contact | Headroom for aux power on edge cards |
Insulation resistance | 1,000 MΩ min @ 500V DC | Crosstalk isolation between TX/RX pairs |
Contact resistance | 30 mΩ max initial | Holds budget across all 98 lanes |
Insertion force | 1.15N max per pair | Predictable mating on automated assembly |
Withdrawal force | 0.15N min per pair | Won't fall out under vibration, but won't fight service |
The 0.15N per pair floor is deliberate. Below that, an edge card starts walking out of the slot under shock and vibration — exactly what kills industrial PCs and rail-side controllers. The CONSHARE sweet spot keeps the card seated from -40°C to +85°C without manual retention hardware. In vibration profiles typical of IEC 60068-2-6 testing, that floor translates to roughly 5–10g of sustained acceleration before the card shifts, which covers most factory floor and vehicle cabinet installations without a secondary locking mechanism.
The PCB layout pattern is built around three anchor dimensions: 10.00mm from the slot entry to the first locating post, 37.00mm covering the main contact zone, and 4.80mm on each side for the mounting ear screw pads. Hit those three points and the rest of the pad array self-aligns. The recommended PCB layout tolerance is ±0.05mm, which is achievable on standard PCB processes without step-up to fine-line fab.
Each contact pad is 0.70mm wide on a 1.00mm pitch, with the clamp tail via at 1.40mm diameter. The dual tolerance chain matters: if the housing locates true but the PCB pads walk by 0.10mm, the solder tail won't sit in the via centroid. The recommended PCB layout holds the centroid within ±0.05mm so the 3.85mm solder tail engages correctly. The 1.70mm tail-to-PCB bottom clearance gives the solder fillet room to form without wicking up into the contact zone during reflow.
Three features on the body separate this from a generic low-angle slot:
Clamp-type solder tails (3.85mm long, 1.70mm below PCB) bite into 1.60mm boards with a press-fit action before reflow, so the connector holds position during the second-side pass without tape or fixtures.
Mounting ears with through-holes on both ends sit 6.50mm outboard from the body centerline and accept M2 screws. The total locked length is 59.6mm, which means the slot is mechanically anchored to the chassis or a stiffener — not just soldered to a PCB that wants to flex.
Locating posts (the two cylinders at the body ends) engage tooling holes in the PCB, so pick-and-place accuracy doesn't depend on vision alone. The post diameter is sized to standard 1.5mm tooling holes, which most assembly lines already have.
A common mistake on first builds is to skip the screws and rely on solder alone. That works on a bench. It doesn't work after 1,000 thermal cycles or a 5G vibration profile, both of which show up in CE and FCC re-certification testing.
The order code breaks plating into five grades. Don't just default to the cheapest:
Code | Contact Gold Thickness | Best Fit |
|---|---|---|
A | Flash (~0.05µ") | Cost-sensitive consumer, <25 mating cycles |
B | 3µ" min | Standard commercial, 25–50 cycles |
C | 6µ" min | Industrial, 50–100 cycles |
D | 10µ" min | High-vibration, frequent service |
E | 15µ" min | Test equipment, burn-in sockets, 200+ cycles |
Most industrial and embedded applications land on C or D. Going lower is a false economy when a single field failure costs more than the connector differential across the entire BOM. Environment codes are independent: R for RoHS-only, G for CPF compliance, H for halogen-free. If your end product ships into the EU, Japan, or California, you want H at minimum. Packaging is selectable as tube (A), tray (C), or box (E). For high-speed SMT lines with vision alignment, tray is usually the cleaner choice. For hand-load or low-volume builds, tube runs faster on the bench.
Edge AI inference nodes — the 98-pin count maps cleanly to PCIe x8 Gen3 lane allocation, which is the sweet spot for accelerator cards in industrial AI gateways. The screw-lock prevents the card from unseating when the chassis is moved for service.
SBC-to-backplane risers — embedded SBCs like the standard 96-pin-aligned carrier boards use this slot for riser cards that add I/O without redesigning the base board.
Industrial PCs and HMIs — operators in factories rack and un-rack cards multiple times a year. The withdrawal floor of 0.15N per pair means the card stays put until the operator decides otherwise.
Test and burn-in fixtures — when the slot is part of a test fixture rather than a shipping product, plating E (15µ" gold) becomes the right call because the mating cycle count explodes.
Every connector ships from a single vertically integrated line — stamping, plating, injection, and assembly all under one roof. That matters for three reasons:
Plating consistency is verified on a per-lot basis with XRF thickness mapping, not spot checks. You don't get a reel where the first 50 pieces meet spec and the last 50 don't.
Lead time on stock configurations runs 2–3 weeks for production volumes. For non-stock pin counts or custom contact plating, plan 4–5 weeks. We don't pretend to be faster than physics and plating baths allow.
Customization beyond the catalog includes alternative pin counts, custom ear geometry for unique chassis cutouts, modified locating post lengths for non-standard PCB thicknesses, and private-label packaging. MOQ on custom runs starts at 5,000 pieces.
Sample policy: free samples ship within 5 business days for standard configurations. Custom samples require NRE discussion first.
Yes. The 98-pin mapping aligns with the PCIe x8 card-edge finger layout at 1.00mm pitch.
The clamp tail is optimized for 1.60mm. For thinner boards, the solder joint becomes the only retention and we recommend a custom post length. For thicker boards, the card insertion depth changes — reach out for engineering review.
The rated cycle count depends on plating code. Flash gold is conservative at 25 cycles; 15µ" gold is rated beyond 200 cycles.
This part is designed and validated for PCIe 3.0 at 8 GT/s. For PCIe 4.0/5.0 lane counts, the catalog has dedicated higher-speed parts — don't push this one beyond its validated signal envelope.
-40°C to +85°C, matching the LCP housing and copper alloy contact system ratings.
Yes. Drawing and full mechanical detail are available on request with the part number BR09801A3K1CR.
