In 2026, Samtec, a global leader in connectors, officially celebrates its 50th anniversary.
At the 2026 electronica China event, the booth for connectors used in high-end medical equipment such as medical imaging and surgical robots was crowded with visitors. Behind this tech gala, the medical electronics industry is undergoing an unprecedented "still waters run deep" transformation—from large-scale equipment in Class III Grade A hospitals monopolized by GPS (GE, Philips, Siemens) 20 years ago, to the robust rise of domestic medical devices today, China's medical electronics industry is penetrating grassroots and rural markets at an astonishing speed and setting sail for global expansion.
Amid this industrial wave, connectors, known as the "porters of intra-board interconnects," are silently undertaking an indispensable foundational supporting role at the physical layer.
Figure | Kong Limin, Sales Manager at Samtec (left), and Xia Zhen, Chief Analyst at eefocus (right); Source: Samtec
Kong Limin, Sales Manager at Samtec, revealed a set of key data during an interview with eefocus reporters at the exhibition site: 20 years ago, when Samtec's global sales were approximately $100 million, the medical business accounted for only 7%~8%; today, as its global revenue scale exceeds $1 billion, the proportion of the medical business has surged to nearly 16%. Among them, the Chinese market contributes about a quarter of the global medical business share, with the fastest growth rate globally.
What kind of extreme challenges has the explosion of the domestic medical equipment market posed to the underlying interconnect technology? And how has Samtec built its moat with "extreme performance" and "disruptive services"?
Market Penetration and Miniaturization: The Test from "One in a Million" to "Rice-Grain-Sized Space"
The uniqueness of China's medical market lies in its massive population base and the policy-driven penetration of primary healthcare. In the past, imported high-end equipment costing tens of millions of RMB is now being optimized by domestic giants into popularized equipment costing millions of RMB, entering rural health centers and community clinics. This decentralized trend requires equipment to be portable, easy to use, and even wearable.
However, the "miniaturization" of medical devices must never come at the expense of performance. In extreme scenarios such as handheld ultrasound, ultra-micro capsule endoscopes, and implantable neural stimulators, PCB space is compressed to the absolute limit.
"In the consumer electronics field, Japanese and South Korean manufacturers can reduce the connector pin pitch to 0.3mm or even 0.2mm for mobile phones. But medical-grade connectors are different; they must maintain industrial-grade mechanical rigidity and extremely high mating cycles at a tiny size," said Kong Limin. "Samtec has currently pushed the physical limit of this pitch to 0.4mm and broken the traditional perception that 'miniature means fragile' through its Micro Rugged system."
More forward-looking is that Samtec's Glass Core Technology (GCT) uses laser drilling to form extremely fine Through-Glass Vias (TGV), pushing interconnect density towards "atomic-level" precision. Utilizing the excellent low-loss performance of glass materials, it upgrades the substrate into an extended carrier for silicon chips, thereby re-architecting interconnect designs within extremely constrained tiny spaces, paving the way for performance breakthroughs in the next generation of ultra-micro medical devices.
Bandwidth and Signal Integrity: Medical Big Data Transmission in the 56G Era
Modern medical equipment is no longer just a simple data collection terminal, but an edge computing node highly integrated with AI (Artificial Intelligence) algorithms. Whether it is CT scanners with high-frequency operations for dynamic beds or high-definition color Doppler ultrasound, they all face the real-time processing and transmission of massive image signals.
"Two weeks ago, top domestic medical equipment manufacturers formally proposed 56G rate connection requirements to us at the R&D end," revealed Kong Limin. "Inside large medical equipment with high bandwidth and multiple channels, the procurement and deployment volume of high-speed cables within a single chassis is often astonishing—the most complex systems use hundreds of pairs or more of high-speed cables and connectors inside one chassis, and just one leading customer's annual connector procurement volume reaches millions of RMB."
Figure | ExaMAX® backplane system; Source: Samtec
To ensure lossless signal transmission at extreme rates of 56G and even future 112/224 Gbps PAM4, Samtec has introduced multiple core technologies:
- Flyover® Cable System: Facing the high loss of PCB materials caused by high-resolution medical imaging, this technology uses ultra-low skew micro-coaxial cables to directly route and bypass signals from the chips, avoiding the high-loss PCB onboard traces, significantly reducing heat dissipation and power consumption.
- Special Hybrid Material Formula: In the ultra-high-speed field above 112G, Samtec has changed the past single LCP material, adding exclusive special components to the plastic body to optimize the dielectric constant, ensuring the ultimate realization of electrical performance characteristics.
- Ultimate Plating and Non-Magnetic (Degaussing) Process: For strong magnetic field environments such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), Samtec uses top-tier imported plating line technology from the US to apply special degaussing treatment to the plating layer process, which not only prevents the connector from being magnetized and causing physical dangers but also ensures that in vitro diagnostic data remains free from interference.
Marathon-Like Reliability: The Hardcore Trump Card for Ultra-Long On-Machine Lifecycles
The lifecycle of medical equipment is typically as long as 5-10 years, and CT scanners in Class III Grade A hospitals face ultra-heavy-duty operations of over a hundred patient scans per day, posing a "marathon-like" durability test for connectors.
"Once medical equipment fails on the operating table or in the examination room, patients cannot wait, and hospitals cannot afford the cost," said Kong Limin.
Therefore, Samtec's products demonstrate strong lifecycle resilience: in an unused (trade storage) state, considering the humid and rainy environment in southern China, the standard is set at 1-2 years; but once the product is put into use on the machine, its service life can far exceed the standard.
Figure | Testing and certification status of Samtec connector products; Source: Samtec
This confidence comes from Samtec's "Severe Environment Testing (SET)" system, which far exceeds commercial-grade standards. This includes the "Mixed Flowing Gas (MFG) Corrosion Test (10-Year MFG)" simulating 10 years of storage in harsh atmospheric environments to ensure gold fingers are not sulfided and oxidized; utilizing the high normal force Tiger Eye™ terminal system to withstand thousands of mating cycles of surgical tools and repeated cleaning and disinfection; and a 360° fully shielded "Faraday cage" design that can perfectly withstand external strong electromagnetic shocks such as defibrillator discharges.
Business Model Disruption: Engineer Culture and Flexible Service with "1-Piece MOQ"
In a market full of connector giants where TE and Amphenol are powerful, Samtec enjoys a unique and irreplaceable reputation in the medical field. This is largely attributed to its extremely flat global management mechanism and ultimate friendliness to R&D engineers.
Traditional large manufacturers often set a high Minimum Order Quantity (MOQ) and have lengthy sample application processes. Samtec, however, has completely disrupted this rule:
- No MOQ Restrictions: Completely breaking the threshold, shipping as usual even if only 1 sample is needed.
- Lightning-Fast Sample Logistics: Delivering samples to R&D engineers within 1 day in the US and within 1 week globally.
- Fully Open "Self-Service" Website: Engineers can download 3D models, footprint libraries, layout diagrams, and simulation test reports for free without registration, saving a lot of time in the early stages of R&D.
Even more commendable is the flatness of its corporate management system. Kong Limin gave an example: "During extreme moments such as the emergency large-scale dispatch of ventilators and ultrasound equipment during the pandemic, Samtec's domestic sales can even directly connect with the factory managers in Malaysia or Costa Rica through the system to handle urgent orders, elevating the priority of medical rescue supplies to the highest authority." This point well demonstrates the resilience of Samtec's integrated global supply chain.
Conclusion
From the LBDS signals in the communication era to the 56G/112G high-speed interconnects in the first year of the AI explosion, having walked alongside China's semiconductor and medical device industries for over twenty years, Samtec has always adhered to the bottom line of high reliability for industrial and medical grades.
Facing increasingly fierce market competition and the wave of domestic substitution, Samtec is accelerating the expansion of production in its local Chinese factories such as Huizhou.
As Kong Limin said, although connectors are "assistants that help chips transport signals," when the wooden barrel effect occurs, this assistant determines the life and death of the entire multi-million-yuan medical equipment. In the future, Samtec will continue to support China's medical innovation towards higher performance with solid connection technology.