Abstract: Connectors for attachment to cables including a large number of very small flexible conductors or conductor pairs, in which very small contacts are provided as an array exposed on a flat mating surface. Contacts may be raised slightly above the flat surface by plating conductive metal to form raised bumps on one of a pair of connectors. Individual conductors are placed through apertures defined in a substrate acting as a template, and are potted in place before shaping the mating surface of the connector. Contact bases to be plated may be defined precisely by photoresist lithography on a cover layer attached to the template substrate, and an elastomeric layer may be provided between the cover layer and the template substrate. Pin and socket combinations are used to align mating connectors with each other.

Abstract: A miniature, electrically-insulated multi-conductor electrical cable suitable for implantation in living bodies and readily connected to sensors or electrodes with terminal pads or to conductors such as printed flex circuit traces of electrical circuits, and a method for preparing such cables. Individual electrical conductors are coated with at least one layer of insulating material. The insulated individual conductors are stranded together, or optionally bound together by an additional layer of insulating material which is compatible with implantation in living bodies. The individual conductors are separated from one another in terminal portions of the cable and are encapsulated in a ribbonizing resin which is trimmed to expose portions of the individual conductors, held by the ribbonization resin at a predetermined pitch to facilitate connection of each of the conductors to a respective conductor trace of a printed circuit or flex circuit.

Abstract: A connector system for interconnecting single or multiple pairs of flex circuits. A single pair of clamping bodies interconnects the respective ones of multiple pairs of electrical conductors in the form of conductor traces carried on respective pairs of flexible substrates, by pressing the flex circuits together between slender fluid-filled flexible bladders held in channels defined in the confronting sides of the clamping bodies. Alignment pins keep the flex circuits and clamping bodies aligned properly with each other, and alignment portions of the flex circuits correspond in thickness to that of the electrically interconnecting portions, to keep the flex circuits and clamping bodies parallel with each other. The clamping bodies are urged toward one another by clamping screws.

Abstract: An economical connector for an array of conductors includes a retaining structure on the connector for holding the conductors in parallel alignment with respective terminals which are separate from the retaining structure. This enables simplification of the terminals while also eliminating cable termination and cable preparation steps.