ZQSFP+ Ganged Cage — What This Connector Is
It carries 76 positions arranged as 38 per port, terminated via press-fit compliant pins through a right-angle through-hole footprint. The cage includes built-in EMI shielding and a light pipe for port-status indication, saving a separate bracket and LED assembly on the bezel.
That matters on high-layer-count backplane or switch boards where a solder defect is expensive to rework. The right-angle orientation puts the cage parallel to the PCB edge, so the module insertion axis is horizontal. The light pipe routes the LED signal to the front bezel without a separate fiber-optic cable assembly.
Contact Plating and Mating Interface
The gold layer resists corrosion in data-center air-handling environments where sulfur compounds can tarnish base-metal contacts.