Passive Components Blog
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • NewsFilter
    • All
    • Aerospace & Defence
    • Antenna
    • Applications
    • Automotive
    • Capacitors
    • Circuit Protection Devices
    • electro-mechanical news
    • Filters
    • Fuses
    • Inductors
    • Industrial
    • Integrated Passives
    • inter-connect news
    • Market & Supply Chain
    • Market Insights
    • Medical
    • Modelling and Simulation
    • New Materials & Supply
    • New Technologies
    • Non-linear Passives
    • Oscillators
    • Passive Sensors News
    • Resistors
    • RF & Microwave
    • Telecommunication
    • Weekly Digest

    Paumanok Releases Capacitor Foils Market Report 2025-2030

    Modelithics Welcomes CapV as a Sponsoring MVP

    Wk 40 Electronics Supply Chain Digest

    Benefits of Tantalum Powder Stress–Strain Curve Evaluation vs Conventional Wet Test

    Electrolyte Selection and Performance in Supercapacitors

    Connector PCB Design Challenges

    Researchers Demonstrated High Energy Ceramic Capacitors Stable in Wide Temperature Range

    Stackpole Offers High Voltage Plate Resistors up to 40KV

    How to Manage Supercapacitors Leakage Current and Self Discharge 

    Trending Tags

    • Ripple Current
    • RF
    • Leakage Current
    • Tantalum vs Ceramic
    • Snubber
    • Low ESR
    • Feedthrough
    • Derating
    • Dielectric Constant
    • New Products
    • Market Reports
  • VideoFilter
    • All
    • Antenna videos
    • Capacitor videos
    • Circuit Protection Video
    • Filter videos
    • Fuse videos
    • Inductor videos
    • Inter-Connect Video
    • Non-linear passives videos
    • Oscillator videos
    • Passive sensors videos
    • Resistor videos

    Connector PCB Design Challenges

    Efficient Power Converters: Duty Cycle vs Conduction Losses

    Ripple Steering in Coupled Inductors: SEPIC Case

    SEPIC Converter with Coupled and Uncoupled Inductors

    Coupled Inductors in SEPIC versus Flyback Converters

    Non-Linear MLCC Class II Capacitor Measurements Challenges

    Percolation Phenomenon and Reliability of Molded Power Inductors in DC/DC converters

    Root Causes and Effects of DC Bias and AC in Ceramic Capacitors

    How to Calculate the Output Capacitor for a Switching Power Supply

    Trending Tags

    • Capacitors explained
    • Inductors explained
    • Resistors explained
    • Filters explained
    • Application Video Guidelines
    • EMC
    • New Products
    • Ripple Current
    • Simulation
    • Tantalum vs Ceramic
  • Knowledge Blog
  • Suppliers
    • Who is Who
  • Events
  • Home
  • NewsFilter
    • All
    • Aerospace & Defence
    • Antenna
    • Applications
    • Automotive
    • Capacitors
    • Circuit Protection Devices
    • electro-mechanical news
    • Filters
    • Fuses
    • Inductors
    • Industrial
    • Integrated Passives
    • inter-connect news
    • Market & Supply Chain
    • Market Insights
    • Medical
    • Modelling and Simulation
    • New Materials & Supply
    • New Technologies
    • Non-linear Passives
    • Oscillators
    • Passive Sensors News
    • Resistors
    • RF & Microwave
    • Telecommunication
    • Weekly Digest

    Paumanok Releases Capacitor Foils Market Report 2025-2030

    Modelithics Welcomes CapV as a Sponsoring MVP

    Wk 40 Electronics Supply Chain Digest

    Benefits of Tantalum Powder Stress–Strain Curve Evaluation vs Conventional Wet Test

    Electrolyte Selection and Performance in Supercapacitors

    Connector PCB Design Challenges

    Researchers Demonstrated High Energy Ceramic Capacitors Stable in Wide Temperature Range

    Stackpole Offers High Voltage Plate Resistors up to 40KV

    How to Manage Supercapacitors Leakage Current and Self Discharge 

    Trending Tags

    • Ripple Current
    • RF
    • Leakage Current
    • Tantalum vs Ceramic
    • Snubber
    • Low ESR
    • Feedthrough
    • Derating
    • Dielectric Constant
    • New Products
    • Market Reports
  • VideoFilter
    • All
    • Antenna videos
    • Capacitor videos
    • Circuit Protection Video
    • Filter videos
    • Fuse videos
    • Inductor videos
    • Inter-Connect Video
    • Non-linear passives videos
    • Oscillator videos
    • Passive sensors videos
    • Resistor videos

    Connector PCB Design Challenges

    Efficient Power Converters: Duty Cycle vs Conduction Losses

    Ripple Steering in Coupled Inductors: SEPIC Case

    SEPIC Converter with Coupled and Uncoupled Inductors

    Coupled Inductors in SEPIC versus Flyback Converters

    Non-Linear MLCC Class II Capacitor Measurements Challenges

    Percolation Phenomenon and Reliability of Molded Power Inductors in DC/DC converters

    Root Causes and Effects of DC Bias and AC in Ceramic Capacitors

    How to Calculate the Output Capacitor for a Switching Power Supply

    Trending Tags

    • Capacitors explained
    • Inductors explained
    • Resistors explained
    • Filters explained
    • Application Video Guidelines
    • EMC
    • New Products
    • Ripple Current
    • Simulation
    • Tantalum vs Ceramic
  • Knowledge Blog
  • Suppliers
    • Who is Who
  • Events
No Result
View All Result
Passive Components Blog
No Result
View All Result

Cable Spec and Wiring

20.9.2021
Reading Time: 5 mins read
A A

How to link the jacks & plugs together?

Selecting the best transmission medium for a given application is a trade-off between many important criteria, such as transmission characteristics (bandwidth, error performance,…) the distance between devices (propagation delay), physical dimensions, the speed of deployment, costs (acquisition, deployment, maintenance …)

RelatedPosts

Polymer Materials and Processing

What is RF Connector

Connector Materials and Processes

Copper wire is a good compromise as regards to the cost, the malleability and the electromagnetic properties.

Twisted Pairs
From the very beginning, the twisted pair cable has always been the exclusive link in telecommunication network applications and it remains the most popular one in most applications, even if optical fiber and satellite communication have their application fields.

A twisted pair is made up of 2 copper conductors; each conductor is insulated by a dielectric (non-conductive material) such as PVC (Poly Vinyl Chloride), Polyethylene, Teflon, fluoropolymer, or any other low smoke, fire retardant substance. This insulation layer separates the conductors from each other in such a way that the electrical circuit isn’t shorted and protects conductors against physical damage.

Fig. 2.150: Twisted pairs

As shown on Figure 2.150, insulated conductors are twisted in a helix with a constant pitch (or distance) in order to make a 360 ° twist. This process serves to improve the signal strength over the distance, each wires carrying a similar signal. At any point of the cable, the signals are equal but opposite in polarity, which has the effect to reduce radiated energy.

A cable can comprise multiple pairs.

Shielded or Unshielded Cables
Depending on the required signal integrity level of the environment (high noise or not) and on the signal frequency, we can decide to use shielded cables or not.

Fig. 2.151: Different categories of cables

Abbreviations might be a little confusing because today, many people keep using the old convention while some others use the new one. In the description below, we decided to use the old one and to show the new one in brackets.

Here are the most popular designation according to ISO/IEC 11801.

UTP (U/UTP): Unshielded Twisted Pair (unshielded cable/unshielded twisted pairs)

FTP (F/UTP): Foiled Twisted Pair (foiled cable/unshielded twisted pair). Cable type in which an overall metal foil encloses all twisted conductor pairs; then, the metal foil is encased in a thermoplastic jacket (most common type).

STP (U/FTP) Shielded Twisted Pair (unshielded cable/foiled twisted pairs). Cable type in which each of the twisted conductor pairs are enclosed by a foil screen and all pairs are surrounded by a thermoplastic jacket.

SFTP cat5e (SF/UTP) Shielded Foiled Twisted Pair. Only the external part is shielded by an Aluminium screen and a Tin/Copper foil.
Twisted pair are not shielded. This category is confusing and can be mixed with FTP.

SFTP cat6/7 & more (S/FTP or SSTP) Shielded Foiled Twisted Pair. Cable type in which each of the twisted conductor pairs are enclosed by a foil screen and then all pairs are surrounded by a braid screen and an overall thermoplastic jacket.

Here again it’s confusing because SFTP cat5 & cat6 are different therefore many people prefer to keep SFTP for cat5e only and to use SSTP for cat6. Best is certainly to use SF-UTP in cat5e and S/FTP in cat6 to make it clearer.

FFTP (F/FTP) Foiled Twisted Pairs. Best possible shielding where both twisted pairs and overall cable are surrounded by an aluminium screen.

Deciding whether you need to shield the wires or not is not easy. It’s not only about the higher cost that it implies, but also about the cable rigidity and its installation which becomes drastically more complicated with the rigidity induced by more shielding. Shielding must also be carefully protected during installation in order not to get damaged; therefore, the question “do I really need this shielding” is everything but not useless.

Cable Categories
The EIA (Electronic Industries Alliance) standardized the use of UTP/STP cables by defining several categories. This standard not only defines cables, but also standards for telecommunication cabling systems. More generally, this standard defines: cable types, system architectures, distances, connectors, cable terminations, performance characteristics. The scope of this chapter does not enable to discuss everything; therefore, we will summarize the cable types, performances and connectors (Table 2.16).

Tab. 2.16: Cable categories

Performance characteristics are not given for each category. Some parameters such as return loss, delay skew, … are not so critical for a low frequency signal.

TIA/EIA provides a set of specifications for cables that are only suitable for high speed systems (e.g. Gigabit Ethernet), as described in Table 2.17.

Tab. 2.17: High frequency specifications

Ethernet Terminations and Wiring Color Codes
Depending on the application, the cable termination is often an issue, especially when interoperability with another system is required.

To follow protocols like Ethernet each pin needs to be wired with specific colours. In this case there are two standard layouts as follows:

Fig. 2.152: TIA/IEA 568A
Fig. 2.153: TIA/IEA 568B

A straight through cable will have the same termination at both ends while a cross over cable will mix two terminations. What for?!

If you compare both wiring, you can easily see that the only difference is that orange and green pairs are swapped, nothing else. Using a crossover cable means that Tx and Rx pairs are reversed. The reason is that before auto MDI/MDIX capabilities became widespread, a cross over cable was necessary to interconnect similar network equip ment (hub to hub …). These cables are still used sometimes to connect two computers or to link industrial equipment which are not able to swap Tx and Rx when the signal arrives on Tx; however, most of today’s communication equipment can automatically re-configure themselves (switching Tx and Rx).

Related

Source: Wurth elektronik

Recent Posts

Connector PCB Design Challenges

3.10.2025
17

Non-Magnetic Interconnects

23.4.2025
27

10 Tips for Ensuring Reliability of Discrete Wire Assemblies

20.2.2025
55

Polymer Materials and Processing

11.8.2025
55

Basic PCB Technology Overview

1.7.2025
23

What is RF Connector

17.12.2024
14

Creepage and Clearance of Connector

25.7.2025
24

Microwave Multi Line Connectors Mounting and Handling Precautions

11.8.2025
3

BASIC PCB Design Rules – Layout

1.7.2025
35

MEMR RF Relay for Space Compact Redundancy Ring

17.12.2024
3

Upcoming Events

Oct 8
11:00 - 12:00 CEST

PCB Online Shop – simply “Made in Germany” by Würth Elektronik

Oct 14
16:00 - 17:00 CEST

Smart Sensors, Smarter AI: Building Reliable Edge Systems

Oct 17
12:00 - 14:00 EDT

External Visual Inspection per MIL-STD-883 TM 2009

Oct 20
October 20 - October 23

Digital WE Days 2025 – Virtual Conference

Oct 21
October 21 @ 12:00 - October 23 @ 14:15 EDT

Space and Military Standards for Hybrids and RF Microwave Modules

View Calendar

Popular Posts

  • Buck Converter Design and Calculation

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Boost Converter Design and Calculation

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Flyback Converter Design and Calculation

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • LLC Resonant Converter Design and Calculation

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • SEPIC Converter Design and Calculation

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Ripple Current and its Effects on the Performance of Capacitors

    3 shares
    Share 3 Tweet 0
  • Dual Active Bridge (DAB) Topology Explained

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • What is a Dielectric Constant and DF of Plastic Materials?

    4 shares
    Share 4 Tweet 0
  • Flying Capacitors Explained

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • MLCC and Ceramic Capacitors

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0

Newsletter Subscription

 

Passive Components Blog

© EPCI - Leading Passive Components Educational and Information Site

  • Home
  • Privacy Policy
  • EPCI Membership & Advertisement
  • About

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Knowledge Blog
  • Premium Suppliers

© EPCI - Leading Passive Components Educational and Information Site

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.
Go to mobile version