Today’s airborne and military markets are implementing more and more high speed Networks, in order to respond to the need of increasing flow of information at greater speeds. One example could be the engine regulation of an aircraft, which analyses and runs parameters up to 70 times per second, and which is integrating more and more parameters in order to enhance the accuracy of the engine management. On top of this need for more High Speed Networks, two others drivers are leading the aero mil developments: Mass saving/compactness and signal integrity. The quadrax technology and more precisely Souriau’s quadrax contacts have been developed taking into account these three trends, to be the perfect interconnection solutions for 100Mbit/s Ethernet or 150 Ohm Fiber channel in harsh environments. A Quadrax contact consists of four strategically spaced inner contacts surrounded by a size 8 outer contacts. The 4 inner contacts forms two 100 Ohm or 150 Ohm matched impedance differential pairs, whereas the outer contact provides an excellent shielding. It therefore fully replaces the usage of 2 differential twinax contacts, with the benefit of - having better performances (reduced crosstalk)

• a shorter cabling time (estimated at 30 % less)
• a more compact profile as well as a lighter weight.

A concrete example of the Souriau’ s quadrax solution excellent performances is the full compliance to the ISO/IEC 11801 categorie 6 requirements. Souriau offers this quadrax contact technology in all the major mil-aero connector ranges:

• MIL DTL 38999, with up to 9 different layouts, including mixed signal and high speed configurations
• Rack and Panel Arinc 600, with up to 8 different layouts
• EN2997/ECS10 engine connectors and its specific 260°C resisting quadrax contact version
• EN3646, and its smallest singleway quadrax connector

Souriau’s quadrax contact is now widely used in various applications such as in Engine management system (FADEC), In Flight Refuelling, Displays and Laptop integration of civil and military aircrafts.