Rigid Flex / Flex
R&D Circuits Introduced Rigid-Flex technology, FAST!!! about two and a half years ago as a new technology type. Over the past two years we have refined our processes, maximized our yields and improved our process time to less than one quarter of what is currently available in the prototype rigid flex martketplace today. Through the use of our Rigid-Flex manufacturing knowledge along with our HDI and microvia capabilitieswe can help supply you with small, flexible boards giving you the form factors and routing density requirements you need for your medical, defense, optelelectronics and hand held device applications.System
For Rigid Flex designs R&D Circuits again utilizes a soft pin-less tooling system incorporating lasers for drilling, routing and capturing drilled panel movement in order to scale artwork prior to imaging. This system allows for delivery time down to 36 hours and advanced HDI (High Density Inter-connect) structure. When building Rigid Flex designs R&D Circuits utilizes adhesive-less Flex materials. Prior to lamination R&D Circuits precisely laser routs the prepreg, cover coat and ahesive removing material from undesireable areas. This totally eliminates all of the traditional failure mechanisms associated with the adhesive and the covercoat in the Rigid areas. Such as, the excessive z axis expansion of the adhesives which can lead to lifted pads, inner layer separation and lamination voids. Also, since the capton cover coats don't extend into the rigid area, the issue associated with drilling in the rigid areas are reduced. The following diagram illustrates the typical construction of a six layer Rigid Flex with four layers of Flex and two layers of Rigid.Bend
Bend radius should be no less than 6x the overall thickness of the flexible material for a double sided board and 12x for a multilayer.Materials
R&D Circuits works with Adhesive-less core materials such as Dupont's AP and others to eliminate the acrylic adhesive in the rigid portion thus eliminating the Z axis expansion issues. This can help you avoid pitfalls such as cracked hole barrels. Available material are Kapton and Pyralux for the flexible portion of the board with FR4, Polyimide, high speed materials such as teflon and all Rogers Series and more for the rigid portion.*Ask your Sales Engineer for more information and see our section under materials for PDF Downloadable material data sheets.