A high speed, high density electrical connector for use with printed circuit boards. The connector is in two pieces with one piece having pins and shield plates and the other having socket type signal contacts and shield plates. The shields have a grounding arrangement which is adapted to control the electromagnetic fields, for various system architectures, simultaneous switching configurations and signal speeds, allowing all of the socket type signal contacts to be used for signal transmission. Additionally, at least one piece of the connector is manufactured from wafers, with each ground plane and signal column injection molded into components which, when combined, form a wafer. This construction allows very close spacing between adjacent columns of signal contacts as well as tightly controlled spacing between the signal contacts and the shields. It also allows for easy and flexible manufacture, such as a connector that has wafers intermixed in a configuration to accommodate single ended, point to point and differential applications.