The Right Connection

Imagine a war scene. One that could inspire a Hemingway discourse on the meaning of courage. One where the ground shakes as missiles explode nearby. It is a setting where most folks’ imaginations would rather not wander, but a reality for many. During an episode like this, reliability in every facet is premium, from military personnel, to communication missile devices. Anything involved in this kind of zone has to be tested and durable under harsh conditions.

This is the type of situation for which Sabritec traditionally has designed its interconnect solutions. The company specializes in interconnect technology and solutions for the aerospace industry. Aircrafts suffer vigorous circumstances of their own, though far from the nature of a scene of war, and Sabritec’s products are designed for those, too. Aircrafts, especially military models, generate tremendous vibration, flying at Mach speeds, and can reach high temperatures.

Sabritec, part of Smiths Connectors North America, offers technologies in different sizes that endure all that and address the needs of wiring applications in the aerospace and military industry, including: delivering high bandwidth, long signal propagation, and immunity to electronic noise and electromagnetic pulses.
 

“As an example, a connector for military might be a big, ruggedized, metal frame connector,” says Tom Kannally, medical products application engineer, Smiths Connectors. “The critical thing for that is [a connector] needs to mate, to stay mated, and it needs to give you the signal integrity you need when you are going through a heavy-duty environment.”

Move to Medical
The operating room itself often feels like some kind of battle sequence, depending on the procedure. The room can sometimes get pretty crowded, too, filled with doctors, nurses, and technicians, working alongside machines. Every square foot counts.

Reliability is just as important in this kind of environment as it is in back in our imaginary war zone, but, unsurprisingly, the requirements in the medical field are different than in the military or aerospace industry. Whereas military and aerospace connectors are built to endure heavy-duty environments, as Kannally describes, medical connectors are built for quick, easy connections, which doctors and nurses can do.

HyperGrip (HG) push/pull plastic connectors from Hypertronics, also part of Smiths Connectors, are designed specifically for medical applications. Medical devices and instruments require multiple connector interfaces, and to avoid incorrect mating, HG connectors are color-coded and feature a keying system, making it easy for operators to connect to the right receptacle.

Synergy Strategy
Sabritec began business approximately 30 years ago as a high-end military and aerospace interconnect company, but for the last couple years, it has made a concerted effort to branch out into other markets, especially the medical device industry. This occurred at the same time Smiths Connectors started pushing its synergy strategy, looking to see how the companies under its umbrella could work together to provide high-end products. For Scott Pianalto, vice president of business development, Smith Connectors, combining the military/aerospace interconnect technologies with the medical sector seemed like a natural fit.

“That offered us the perfect opportunity to blend Sabritec’s fiber optic high-speed coax expertise with the very aggressive and value connector portfolio developed by Hypertronics,” Pianalto says.

Sabritec contact technologies are now available in Hypertronics Hypergrip Series connectors.

The timing of Smith’s synergy effort came at an opportune time.

Hypertronics has been selling to the medical industry for the past 20-plus years, “but what we found over the years is that in certain applications, and more and more lately, the medical industry needs more variety,” Kannally says.

Fiber Optics
Pianalto emphasizes high-speed fiber optics technology, in particular, as a key part of Sabritec’s expansion into the medical industry.

“That is what we are known for in our world,” he elaborates. For those who are unfamiliar with exactly what fiber optic technology is – and you are not alone – Sabritec’s website provides a pretty good description:

“Fiber optics is simply a method of carrying information from one point to another in the form of light utilizing a thin strand of glass or plastic that serves as the transmission medium.” In other words, data transmitted across the connector is done with light pulses, as opposed to electrical current, like in a copper connector.

According to Kannally, this offers a number of advantages, especially in the medical industry. Fiber optics has a wide bandwidth, meaning it can transfer digital and audio signals at a high speed, something especially suited the imaging sector, which requires the high-speed transfer of digital and audio/video signals.

“If a medical application has, say a video feed requirement for an operating room, we can put video or high-speed rate interface into the medical connector,” Kannally explains.

Fiber optic connectors are also safer, smaller, and lighter than its copper counterpoints. It is safer because it isolates electricity, so when it is detached, no power is going through it that could injure somebody.

Sabritec contact technologies for the medical market are designed to meet the highest standards for critical care devices.

Fiber is also more space-efficient than copper, capable of transmitting the same amount of data as copper can but with less lines. Reducing lines saves space, and in an environment such as a hospital room, where space is prime, that is important for designers and end-users. The other advantage of fiber is that multiplexing is easier than with copper, meaning it only takes one or two fiber optics as opposed to a bevy of signal contacts.

Sabritec also offers high-speed copper contact systems, including coaxial or triaxial radio frequency contacts for high-frequency applications up to 40GHz. A coaxial contact is a contact with two conductors on a common axis, separated by a dielectric.

Flexible Technology
Connectors available on the market do not offer enough design flexibility. That was the most heard complaint designers had for developers at Smiths Connectors as they researched the connector market.

“As we looked at the industry, we found that there were a lot of telecom quality products that were in the marketplace,” Pianalto says. “There was a lot of military style products that were in the marketplace. The telecom did not necessarily meet the recognized needs of the medical environment, where you had a large amount of mating and de-mating going on with the connectors. On the products that were coming down from the military side, they did not necessarily meet the aesthetic and medical look that most medical companies would like to have in an interconnect product.”

The combination of Sabritec contact technology with HG connectors aims to provide medical device designers and end users the flexibility and ease-of-use on two fronts: the technological side and the design/operation side.

Sabritec contact technologies and HG connectors come in different sizes, meaning designers have more options when it comes to deciding how big to make a machine, or whether the machine will have to be portable. Smaller devices are more likely to be used outside the hospital for homecare, which has become an increasingly popular option for hospitals and patients alike. Hospitals benefit from more rooms for other patients, while patients get to leave the hospital and recover while in the comfort of their own home.

The HG connectors are what allow the patients to take their ambulatory devices home. They have no exposed metal, meaning the chance of shock is nearly non-existent, but they are also easy to plug and unplug. The HG connectors are designed so that a person can simply pull them out, without having to unscrew, unbutton, or unhook anything.

“It is very user friendly; it is very intuitive; it has a very nice look and feel to it,” Pianalto explains. “It has all the benefits of a traditional medical style connector that the users are more comfortable with, but it has the technological advantages that were found in a more recognized product for the military.”

For Kannally, the marriage between the Sabritec technology and the HG connector provides the biggest benefit to customers. The combination produces a type of hybrid connector for the medical industry, where a single connector boasts different types of signals or power going through it; for example, fiber optic high-speed signals and an electronic connection. Without this hybrid, connectors would be larger, requring a number of lines for fiber optic connectors, which would be separate from electric connectors, and would take more time to mate and de-mate.

“This allows you to put these different interconnect technologies into one connector, as opposed to having two or three different connectors to make all your connections,” Kannally explains. “With these hybrid connectors, they can plug and unplug the connector once without having to take the fiber optic connector and electric connector and plug them separately.

“For instance, say you have an X-ray, ultrasound, or MRI system, where if you bring that into the operating theater, they often need high-definition signals to go through the connectors. Something like that would require a high-speed interconnect, whether it be a high-speed copper or high-speed fiber.”

Listening to Customers
Beyond the technological side, the people at Sabritec offer close customer relations, including complete solutions and expertise. Listening to customers initially sparked the idea for a hybrid connector line, so when Vinay Karunakaran, product line manager, medical, Smiths Connectors, visits with a customer, he asks them as series of questions.

“We have to understand what the customer’s needs are. What are their power needs? Their signal needs?” Karunakaran says. “We ask those questions early on, so we can get a better understanding of their connector needs to better provide them a complete solution. That is one of the expertise we bring with this merger.”

The merger, mixing Sabritec technology with Hypertronic technology, is designed to benefit medical customers, from designers to end-users, in terms of flexibility, technology, and ease-of-use. The synergy offered from the Smiths enterprise as a whole, Pianalto concludes, means the company has the capacity and capability to respond to specific customer demands across a broad range of operations.

“When we talk to a customer, we are not trying to sell them a product,” he says. “We are trying to offer them a solution, and in the bag of goods that we are able to bring to that customer, there really are not too many thing that they can throw at us in terms of need that we do not have the ability to draw from. I think that is part of what makes us unique. I think it is that capability to bring all of that together in a single package, with a single engineering contact or a single business development or sales point – to bring all that technology together into a package to solve a customer’s problem.”

Sabritec
Irvine, Calif.
www.sabritec.com