If you have ever looked inside your DVD player or inkjet printer and saw a brown-orange cable, you have seen a flex circuit. Flex circuits have become widely used in medical, automotive, LCD's, and wearable electronics. Flex circuits are much thinner and lighter compared with rigid boards. The market for flex is growing at a higher compound annual rate than rigid PCB's, and this is expected to continue.
Flexible Printed Circuits (FPC) are defined by IPC-6013 1.3.2 as follows:
A flexible circuit where the PTH does not go through the stiffener is still considered a FPC, not a rigid-flex.
Sunshine Global only uses hi-temp resistant polyimide (PI) materials. Our preferred types are Panasonic and DuPont adhesivless materials, and Shengyi adhesive-based materials and coverlays.
Stiffeners or rigidizers are often used, particularly in the soldering areas or ZIF connector areas. These are usually made with polyimide or FR4.
Sunshine Global has the capability to build types 1 through 4 flexible printed circuits. Most FPC's are single-sided or double-sided, as bendability is reduced with increasing copper layers and thickness. SGC has built multilayer flex up to 4 layers.
Please contact us during the design phase to ensure your flex designs are optimized for manufacturability and cost.
