Card-Cage Shielding Given Major Boost With New Gasket

Dramatic improvements in EMI shielding for the increasingly more compact card-cages used in telecomm systems are claimed for a new, T-shaped gasket. Designed to provide a lower-cost alternative to traditional BeCu gaskets, the new T-gaskets achieve their effectiveness by delivering a bi-directional wiping action and allowing for zero clearance tolerance that reportedly does not compromise the shielding.
The easy-to-handle and easy-to-attach EMI shielding gasket consists of a highly conductive silver fabric applied over open-cell, flexible, resilient urethane foam. And to ensure rigidity, a flat polycarbonate insert is embedded in the foam. In card-cages, the gasket flattens directly into the grooves when space becomes tight, allowing additional cards to be inserted without tolerance stackup problems occurring. The gaskets are also said to help reduce acoustical noise.