What is a flexible printed circuit board?
A flexible Printed Circuit Board, also known as the “soft board”, is a flexible insulating substrate made of printed circuits, while many rigid printed circuit boards do not have these advantages. For example, it can be freely bent, coiled, or folded, according to the requirements of the spatial layout of any arrangement, and in the three-dimensional space of any movement and expansion, to achieve the integration of component assembly and wire connection. The use of FPC can greatly reduce the size of electronic products, electronic products to high density, miniaturization, high reliability, and the direction of development needs.
That is why FPC can be widely used in aerospace, military, mobile communication, laptop computers, computer peripherals, PDAs, digital cameras, and other fields.
Advantages:
- A flexible printed circuit board can be bent and folded freely, and it can be bent tens of thousands of times without being damaged. It can be arranged arbitrarily according to the spatial layout and can be expanded and moved in three-dimensional space to achieve the integration of component assembly and wiring, with high flexibility.
- The use of FPC can reduce the size and weight of electronic products;
- The flexible printed circuit board also has good heat dissipation and weldability and is easy to load and connect, the combination of soft and hard design also to a certain extent makes up for the flexible substrate in the component carrying capacity of the slight shortage.
- flexible printed circuit boards referred to as “soft boards”, commonly known as FPC, can be freely bent, coiled, or folded. The use of FPC can greatly reduce the size of electronic products, electronic products to high-density, miniaturization, high reliability, and the direction of development needs.
Disadvantages:
- One-time high initial cost
As flexible PCB is designed and manufactured for special applications, the beginning of the circuit design, wiring, and photographic plate are required for higher costs. Unless there is a special need to apply soft PCB, usually a small number of applications, good not to use. - Flexible PCB changes and repairs are more difficult
when a flexible printed circuit board is made, and must start from the bottom of the map or the preparation of light drawing procedures, so it is not easy to change. Its surface is covered with a protective film, to be removed before repair, repair, and recovery, which is more difficult work. - Size limitations
Flexible PCB in the case of not yet popular, usually with intermittent process manufacturing, and therefore subject to the limitations of the size of the production equipment, can not be made very long, very wide. - Improper operation is easy to damage
Improper operation of the installation of personnel is easily caused by damage to the flexible circuit, its soldering and rework needs to be trained personnel to operate.
The above is an introduction to the advantages and disadvantages of flexible printed circuit board, flexible printed circuit board will be assembled components and wires connected to become, can reduce the volume and weight of electronic products electronic products are very commonly used, and to high-density, miniaturization, high-reliability direction.
Future application directions of flexible printed circuit board
As the basis of electronic products, flexible printed circuit boards have a better space for development, especially with the progress of science and technology, the new energy automobile industry, intelligent products, and other industries flourish. In the future, we have to strengthen technological innovation and increase research and development efforts to improve product reliability and safety.
