Meet the New Customer
| Jim Donaldson, Glenair’s Director of Connector Products has been working with D-Sub Miniature and Micro-D applications for the past 18 years. His perspective on the market is highly instructive when the question of future growth is concerned: "Anybody currently involved in military or commercial electronics is either already using micro interconnects or soon will be. Every manufacturer of communications gear, from space-based satellites to battlefield radar is looking to reduce the size and weight of their systems. Every prime or sub-contractor involved in the production of high-reliability electronics is engineering applications around smaller and smaller circuit boards. For Glenair’s sales channel, this makes the question of who the target customers are for micro interconnect systems an easy one to answer: Simply put, they are the same customers Glenair has been serving for the last 40 years."
The market for miniature connectors is not just limited to new systems and programs. Which is to say, much of Microway’s output is also purchased for retrofit efforts. In missile systems, for example, the incorporation of new guidance system technology into an existing missile often requires the development of custom micro interconnect cabling. "It’s a matter of fitting all the new gadgets into the same size container which used to hold all the old ones" explains Dr. Zic. "One of the most common challenges in solving this type of problem is the miniaturization of the electrical system, and that’s where we come in. Application engineers are forever looking at wires and contemplating just how small a conductor can carry the signal: #24 AWG? #30 AWG? Often they are faced with situations in which no standard commercial product exists. Whenever the systems have to get really, really small - whether due to the incorporation of a new electronics component, or the need to squeeze some additional, unrelated thing into the package - they call Microway."
The design and production of a complete MIL-DTL-83513 micro product line, as well as the capability to tackle custom connector and cable harness work is not approached lightly or casually at Microway. As Dr. Zic is fond of saying, when it |
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comes to TwistPin technology and the micro connector business, Microway is "committed like pigs". Which is to say, unlike the contribution the chicken made to your morning plate of bacon and eggs, Microway’s commitment more closely resembles that of the pig - who truly gave all it had towards the success of the meal. This type of dedication to solving customer interconnect problems is born out of a business philosophy which holds customer satisfaction, product quality, and technical innovation in the highest possible regard - a philosophy which makes Microway a welcome player on the Glenair team.