Home [Press Release] Hirose Electric Has Released The IT14 Series, A Board-to-Board Connector Supporting Up to 112Gbps PAM4

Hirose Electric Has Released The IT14 Series, A Board-to-Board Connector Supporting Up to 112Gbps PAM4
March 22, 2023

Hirose Electric Has Released The IT14 Series, A Board-to-Board Connector Supporting Up to 112Gbps PAM4

- Release of Licensed Second Source Contributes to the Stable Supply of the OCP Accelerator Module (OAM) Specified "Mirror Mezz" Connector by Molex -

Hirose Electric has released the IT14 Series, a hermaphroditic board-to-board connector that supports up to 112Gbps PAM4 transmission speed. IT14 is the licensed second source for “Mirror Mezz”*1, which was developed by connector manufacturer Molex in 2018 (Headquarters: Lisle, Illinois, USA) for applications such as servers, data communications, and telecommunications equipment.

IT14 Series

● Stable Supply of Components in Telecommunications Equipment Market

The IT14 Series has been released mainly to provide a stable supply of components required in the telecommunications equipment market. Molex's Mirror Mezz is used as the board-to-board connector on the Open Compute Project (OCP)*2 Accelerator Module (OAM, OCP Accelerator Module) and in chipset connection for ASICs (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) and GPUs (Graphics Processing Unit) from leading semiconductor manufacturers. Further demand is expected in the future, and a stable supply of the Mirror Mezz connector is essential. To meet these needs, Hirose has released the IT14 Series as the licensed second source product of Molex's Mirror Mezz.

● Excellent Transmission Characteristics and Workability

The IT14 Series supports up to 112Gbps PAM4 / 56Gbps NRZ high speed transmission. The hermaphroditic interface reduces the number of steps required to design each board. In addition, the protective housing encapsulates the contact tips for each pin arrangement, prevents warping during mating and allows blind mating for excellent workability.

OCP Accelerator Module (OAM) Usage Example

Molex Mirror Mezz Licensed Second Source: IT14

1.High Speed Transmission (56Gbps NRZ / 112Gbps PAM4)
2.OAM Specified Connector
3.High Pin Count, High Density: 688pos. (172 Differential Pairs)
4.Hermaphroditic Connector
5.Stub-less 2-point Contact Design

● Future Product Development

The newly released IT14 Series meets the demanding performance requirements for data communications and telecommunications equipment. The available variations are listed below.

  • Stacking Height: 5mm
  • No. of Pos.: 688pos.

Hirose will continue to respond to diversifying connectivity needs and contribute to the transformation of devices.

● Corporate Profile and Related Information

* Molex and Mirror Mezz are registered trademarks of Molex, LLC in the United States and/or other countries.
* Open Compute Project: A community of engineers who design and deliver the most efficient server, storage and data center hardware for scalable computing, launched in April of 2011 by Meta (formerly known as Facebook).
* The product picture has been changed. (March 31, 2023)

IT14 Series Feature Page