PCB Technical - The characteristics of flexible pcb circuit boards

The flexible circuit is small in size and light in weight. The original design of the flexible PCB was to replace the larger wire harness wires. On current cutting-edge electronic device assembly boards, flexible circuits are usually the only solution to meet the requirements of miniaturization and mobility. Flexible circuits (sometimes called flexible printed circuits) are copper circuits or printed polymer thick film circuits etched on a polymer substrate. For thin, light, compact and complex devices, the design solutions range from single-sided conductive lines to complex multilayer three-dimensional assembly. The total weight and volume of the flexible assembly are 70% less than the traditional round wire harness method. Flexible circuits can also increase their strength by using reinforced materials or liners to achieve additional mechanical stability.

Flexible circuit can be moved, bent, twisted The flexible circuit can be moved, bent, and twisted without damaging the wire, and can comply with different shapes and special package sizes. The only limitation is the volume space issue. Because it can withstand millions of times of dynamic bending, the flexible circuit can be well suited for continuous motion or periodic motion interconnection system, and become a part of the final product function. The solder joints on a rigid PCB are subjected to thermal and mechanical stress and will fail after hundreds of cycles. Shel-dahl, Northfield, Minn's product manager Randy Lia said: "Requires electrical signals/power to move, and certain products with smaller form factors/package sizes benefit from flexible circuits."

Flexible circuits have excellent electrical properties, dielectric properties, and heat resistance. Flexible circuits provide excellent electrical properties. Said Don Friedman, CEO of Inter-national Flex TEchnologies, Endicott, New York. "The lower dielectric constant allows the rapid transmission of electrical signals; the good thermal performance makes the components easy to cool down; the higher glass transition temperature or melting point makes the components run well at higher temperatures."

Flexible circuits have higher assembly reliability and output. Flexible circuits reduce the hardware required for internal connections, such as solder joints, relay lines, backplane lines and cables commonly used in traditional electronic packaging, so that flexible circuits can provide higher assembly Reliability and yield. Because the traditional interconnection hardware composed of multiple complicated systems is prone to high component misalignment rate when assembling. Mike Giesler, marketing manager of 3M Electronic Products Division, Austinm, Texas, said: "Flexible circuits have low stiffness and small size. It is precisely because of the small size of flexible circuit board components that less materials are used." With the quality With the advent of engineering, a thin flexible system is designed to be assembled in only one way, thereby eliminating many human errors usually associated with independent wiring projects.

The application of flexible PCB components is increasing rapidly. Open a 35mm camera, there are 9 to 14 different flexible circuits inside, because the camera is getting smaller and more functional. The only way to reduce the volume is to make the components more filial and finer, with finer lines, tighter pitches, and bendable objects. Pacemakers, medical equipment, video cameras, hearing aids, portable computers-almost everything in use today has flexible circuits."