Rigid Flex Technology
R&D Circuits offers some of the quickest lead times for rigid-flex circuits in the industry today. This combined with sset up charges significatly lower than hard tooled rigid flexible systems makes R&D Circuits your best choice for quick turn rigid flex applications.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 adhesive 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.