Feature: Interconnects


systems since 2014, despite the massive barriers to entry into this market. The enormous investment in equipment and stock was the first major hurdle. Specialised test equipment, self-designed manufacturing equipment, hugely expensive materials and even additional manufacturing space had to be procured. A large network of university partnerships has helped immeasurably with product development and elevating technical expertise. Now, Intelliconnect has become a market leader in both


Europe and the US, with specialist products and equipment. For example, as conventional soldering is not possible with some cryogenic cable materials, Intelliconnect has designed an award-winning solderless connector and other low- temperature hardware to create assemblies that work to well below 2K (-271.15°C) at bandwidths to 40GHz.


How it started Back in 2014, Intelliconnect was approached by a leading UK exponent of cryogenic dilution refrigerators to supply RF cable assemblies made from various exotic materials – some superconducting, some not – required to work from room temperature down to mK levels. To this point, the customer had been manufacturing the cable assemblies in-house, but wanted to outsource to an expert cable house. Whilst Intelliconnect had extensive experience in manufacturing many types of RF and cable products, it had never been involved with exotic cable materials such as Niobium Titanium, Cupro-Nickel, Beryllium Copper or Oxygen Free Copper. With the help of the customer, it sourced the cable, primarily from Japanese sources, and set about designing a range of connectors. The first and most significant issue was that some of the


cables, particularly Niobium Titanium, were impossible to solder. So, the customer used a method of electroplating the ends of the cut cable to enable solderability. This was expensive and time-consuming, as well as unreliable, so a new clamp/crimp methodology was developed and Intelliconnect’s award-winning 2.92mm solder-free range was born. This proved successful, especially as the electrical performance in terms of return loss (VSWR) and insertion loss were equivalent or better than that of soldered connectors. After a short time successfully making and supplying


cable assemblies, the customer asked Intelliconnect to look at making the sub-system that the cables populated. This involved a whole new set of challenges in designing and sourcing a variety of products that would work effectively at extremely cold temperatures. Precision metal plates, attenuators, waterproof adaptors, hermetic seals, enclosures and a slew of other highly-specialised components were designed or sourced, production layouts were compiled, and a significant amount of jigs and manufacturing and test equipment purchased. A new production cell was set up, and operators trained to meet customer needs.


Cryogenic cooling tower


Flexible cryogenic cabling with standard RF connector interfaces


Quality and savings Another unforeseen issue was packaging. The units built were extremely fragile and much larger than usual, so special packaging was designed for safe, secure transit. Ultimately, after a few teething problems, the customer was very happy with the product’s quality improvement, and delighted with a nearly 50% cost-saving from manufacturing in-house. This has proved a catalyst for a huge expansion in Intelliconnect’s involvement in this exciting industry across the globe, with many blue-chip customers, an ever-expanding product range and a cryogenics- focused subsidiary called CryoCoax. CryoCoax is a member of the British Cryogenics Council,


the Cryogenics Society of Europe and the Cryogenics Society of America. An ISO9001 manufacturer, CryoCoax is also SC21-accredited to a Silver standard. SC21 is a business quality and improvement qualification designed to provide a continuous improvement programme and assured supply chain performance. Silver Award proves > 96% on-time delivery and 99.5% quality.


www.electronicsworld.co.uk May 2021 35


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