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The essence of a Rigid Flex PCB is to use FPC as one or two circuit layers of the PCB, and then partially mill the rigidity of the PCB. After the partial hard board opening process, only the soft board part is retained. At this time, the entire PCB is composed of some hard boards and some soft boards.
What is a Rigid Flex PCB?
The birth and development of FPC and PCB have given rise to the new product of Rigid Flex PCB. A Rigid Flex PCB is a circuit board that combines flexible and hard circuit boards through pressing and other processes, according to relevant process requirements, to form a circuit board with FPC and PCB characteristics. Some manufacturers also refer to Rigid Flex PCBs as rigid wound bonding boards or rigid flexible bonding boards.
The advantage of Rigid-Flex PCB is that it has both the characteristics of FPC and PCB. Therefore, it can be used in some products with special requirements, which have both a certain flexible area and a certain rigid area, which is of great help in saving internal space, reducing finished product volume, and improving product performance.
Because the Rigid-Flex PCB is a combination of FPC and PCB, the production of Rigid-Flex PCB should have both FPC and PCB production equipment. Firstly, the electronic engineer draws the circuit and shape of the flexible bonding board according to the requirements, and then issues it to a factory that can produce Rigid Flex PCBs. After processing and planning the relevant files by the CAM engineer, the FPC and PCB production lines are arranged to produce the required FPC and PCB. After these two types of soft and hard boards are produced, according to the planning requirements of the electronic engineer, the FPC and PCB are seamlessly pressed together by a press machine, and then go through a series of detailed steps, Finally, the Rigid Flex PCB was produced.
The disadvantages of Rigid Flex PCB are that it has multiple production processes, high production difficulty, low yield rate, and requires a lot of materials and manpower. Therefore, its price is relatively expensive and the production cycle is relatively long.
Reliability of Rigid Flex PCB
The Rigid Flex PCB can solve the reliability issue of FPC installation. Connecting FPC through connectors brings installation costs, inconvenience, and reliability issues, as well as issues such as short circuits and detachment.
Rigid Flex PCB comprehensive cost
Although the price of organizational space has increased, it has saved connector costs, reduced installation time, reduced repair rates, improved productivity and reliability. The use of products with massive shipments often effectively reduces costs.
So the calculated cost can be calculated in this way
Rigid Flex PCB area * Rigid Flex PCB unit price - processing time cost - FPC loosening repair cost * loosening probability - whether the management cost caused by fewer types of boards is greater than the original PCB area * PCB unit price+FPC price+connector price.
Design considerations for Rigid Flex PCB
1. It is necessary to consider the bending radius of the flexible plate, as a small bending radius can easily cause damage.
2. Effectively reduce total area, optimize design to reduce costs.
3. We need to consider the structural issues of the three-dimensional space after installation.
4. The optimal design of the number of layers for flexible part wiring needs to be considered.
Rigid-Flex PCB
The following are the Rigid Flex PCB process capabilities of iPCB
Rigid Flex PCB - Peel strength: 1.4N
Rigid Flex PCB - Flatness: less than 15um before baking; Less than 30um after baking
Rigid Flex PCB - Thermal shock: ℃ 288 ℃ (3 times within 10 seconds)
Rigid Flex PCB - W/B wire tensile strength:>6g
Rigid Flex PCB - Minimum board thickness: FPCB 0.1mm, 4-layer 0.3mm, 6-layer 0.5mm, 8-layer 0.6mm, 10 layer 0.8mm