Electric Circuit Components & Parts #5482706

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 and PEEK 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 (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.

Single-sided PCB means that wiring is available only on one side of the insulating substrate. The side which contains the circuit pattern is called the solder side whereas the other side is called the component side. These types of boards are mostly used in case of simple circuitry and where the manufacturing costs are to be kept at a minimum. Nevertheless, they represent a large volume of printed boards currently produced for professional and non-professional grades. The single-sided boards are manufactured mostly by the print and etch method or by the diecut technique by using a die that carries an image of the wiring pattern; and the die is either photoengraved or machine-engraved.