Furukawa Electric Develops New Cu Alloy Strip for Small Connector

Furukawa Electric announced on Monday the firm developed high strength corson series copper alloy strip for ultra small connector. The firm developed the new product, EFCUBE-ST with higher strength by improving the alloy component and constitution control. The firm targets small connector in smart phone and tablet device to replace copper titanium alloy. The firm tries to make monthly more than 300 tonnes including current corson series copper alloy products in fiscal 2013 ending March 2014 compared with current around 200 tonnes.

Copper strip for small connector needs high bending and spring property both during processing and using. Traditional corson series copper alloy has higher bending property but less strength than copper titanium alloy.

The new alloy contains more nickel and silicon. The firm developed the product with 900 mega pascal of strength as copper titanium alloy through better technology in annealing and rolling processes for uniformed crystal structure direction.

The new alloy has better properties than copper titanium alloy with low elasticity and conductivity during using. The new alloy has 110 giga pascal of Young’s modulus of elasticity compared with 135 giga pascal for copper titanium alloy while the new alloy has 3 times conductivity of copper titanium alloy.

The firm expects the alloy price is around 30% lower than copper titanium alloy. The firm, which just started sample shipment for the users, expects the cost could be lower in mass production stage.