Any engineer visiting a museum's technical exhibits will give a cursory glance to the connectors of ancient computers, space rockets, and satellites. Traditionally, these have been large and rugged, something that offers confidence and assurance. However, even high-reliability (HiRel) components are under pressure to reduce size and weight. This is something that Scott Unzen and the team at Omnetics has followed over the past 30 years. With a background in connectors for the aerospace, oil, and defense industries, the team has recently experienced growing interest from the medical industry for their miniature and nano-sized reliable connectors. This follows the trend for wearable medical devices and the growth in cochlear implants. Omnetics actually started in the computer industry, providing connectors for the Cray supercomputers. Today, they offer the tiniest of connectors fulfilling the standards such as MIL-SPEC, NASA/ESA, and other HiRel requirements.

Stuart Cording stopped by the Omnetics stand at a previous edition of electronica in Munich (2022) to speak with Scott about high-reliabilty connectors and how to handle wiring such miniature solutions.