OREANDA-NEWS. Alps Electric has developed and added to its product lineup the "SCHA9B Series" microSD(tm) Memory Card Connector (PCB Cut-off Type), ideal for products including tablets, other mobile devices and digital cameras.

Mobile devices like tablets and smartphones bring comfort and convenience to our lives. Besides their increasing functionality, these devices are constantly being made thinner to improve portability, demanding size and thickness reductions of the components inside them, too.

Even as devices become thinner, they have to be able to handle larger volumes of data to support features like high-resolution photography and downloading of music and video. Many devices employ microSD(tm) cards or other memory cards to store this data. As well as allowing easy card insertion, connectors forming the link between memory cards and devices need to assist downsizing.

Alps Electric has responded to these market needs by developing the SCHA9B Series microSD(tm) Memory Card Connector (PCB Cut-off Type). Mass production is already underway. The SCHA9B Series is the industry's thinnest with a product height when installed of 0.69mm above the PCB, realized through a continuation of thickness reductions achieved with earlier models and use of a PCB cut-off format, whereby the connector is mounted into a cut-out in the board.

The product's structure was optimized through application of original simulation technology acquired by Alps Electric to date. Enclosing the top and bottom of the connector within a metal frame realizes both the thinnest installed height for a PCB cut-off type and a structure resilient to scooping. Precision processing and thin film insert molding technologies were used to ensure high quality in mass production.

For sensing card insertion, the connector contains a detector switch with a sliding contact structure resilient to foreign matter, achieving high reliability.