Flexible Circuit

Flexible Circuit

Flexible electronics, also known as flex circuits, is a technology for assembling electronic circuits by mounting electronic devices on flexible plastic substrates, such as polyimide, PEEK or transparent conductive polyester film. Additionally, flex circuits can be screen printed silver circuits on polyester. Flexible electronic assemblies may be manufactured using identical components used for rigid printed circuit boards, allowing the board to conform to a desired shape, or to flex during its use. These flexible printed circuits (FPC) are made with a photolithographic technology. An alternative way of making flexible foil circuits or flexible flat cables (FFCs) is laminating very thin (0.07 mm) copper strips in between two layers of PET. These PET layers, typically 0.05 mm thick, are coated with an adhesive which is thermosetting, and will be activated during the lamination process. FPCs and FFCs have several advantages in many applications:

  • Tightly assembled electronic packages, where electrical connections are required in 3 axes, such as cameras (static application).
  • Electrical connections where the assembly is required to flex during its normal use, such as folding cell phones (dynamic application).
  • Electrical connections between sub-assemblies to replace wire harnesses, which are heavier and bulkier, such as in cars, rockets and satellites.
  • Electrical connections where board thickness or space constraints are driving factors.

Read more about Flexible Circuit:  Applications, History, Flexible Circuit Structures, Flexible Circuit Materials, Flexible Circuit Industry Standards and Specifications

Famous quotes containing the words flexible and/or circuit:

    “Freedom is the essence of this faith. It has for its object simply to make men good and wise. Its institutions then should be as flexible as the wants of men. That form out of which the life and suitableness have departed should be as worthless in its eyes as the dead leaves that are falling around us.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    “We are all hostages, and we are all terrorists. This circuit has replaced that other one of masters and slaves, the dominating and the dominated, the exploiters and the exploited.... It is worse than the one it replaces, but at least it liberates us from liberal nostalgia and the ruses of history.”
    —Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)