How Flexible Board are Manufactured
Published on 7/22/2019 12:01:52 PM
Description
<p style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">As we may know, the production method of a <strong>FPC board </strong>mostly likely is similar to that of the standard rigid PCB board. And in some production stage, the PCB laminate demands different equipment or different treatment.<br/></span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;"> </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">Most of the PFC PCBs use a negative method. However, you may found that some difficulties will occur during machining and coaxial treatment during the laminates. And the major issue is handling process of substrates. Flexible boards substrates are nets of different widths, therefore, the transfer of flexible laminates demands the rigid bracket during etching processing. </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;"> </span></p><p style="text-align: center; line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;"><img src="https://jpfile1.oss-cn-shenzhen.aliyuncs.com/allpcb/web/image/20190723/6369948772255466412161648.png" alt="The Manufacturing Processes of Flex-PCB.png"/></span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;"><br/></span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">What should pay attention to is, during the production of flexible board, the handling and cleaning of PFC PCBs is much more critical than the handling of a rigid standard PCB boards. If it is not proper clean or obey of the correct processing, it may result in failures in subsequent production processing due to the sensitivity of the substrates used in the PFC PCB boards.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; text-align: center;"> </span></span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;"><br/></span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">And it plays an very important role in the production procedure of FPC board,. The material wil be affected by some pressure such as baking wax, lamination processing or copper plating. The copper foil is also fragile to knocking and dents, and the a roper extension will make sure a max flexibility of PCB. A Mechanical destroy </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">or work harden to the copper foil will also affect or even reduce the flexibility life of the flex circuit boards.</span></p><p style="margin-left: 56px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;"> </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">A typical flexible single-sided circuit is cleaned at least three times during manufacturing, however, multiple substrates require cleaning for 3</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;"></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">-6 times due to its complexity. In contrast, rigid multilayer printed circuit boards may require the same number of cleaning cycles, but the cleaning procedure is different, and care must be taken when cleaning flexible materials. Even under the extremely light pressure during the cleaning process, the dimensional stability of the flexible material is affected and the panel is elongated in the z or y direction depending on the bias of the pressure. </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; text-align: center;"><br/></span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">Chemical cleaning of flexible printed circuit boards should be environmentally friendly. The cleaning process includes alkaline dye bath, thorough rinsing, <strong>micro-etching</strong> and final cleaning. Damage to the film material often occurs during the shelf life of the panel, when the tank is agitated, when the shelf is removed from the pool or when there is no shelf, and the surface tension is destroyed in the clear pool.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;"><br/></span></p><p style="text-align: center; line-height: 1.5em;"><img src="https://jpfile1.oss-cn-shenzhen.aliyuncs.com/allpcb/web/image/20190729/6369999136499236468559434.png" alt="flexible pcb.png"/></p><p style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;"> </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">The holes in the flexible board are generally punched, which leads to an increase in processing cost. Drilling is also possible, but this requires special adjustment of the drilling parameters to obtain an unstained hole wall. After drilling, the borehole dirt is removed in a water cleaner with ultrasonic agitation.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;"> </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">Mass production of flexible boards has proven to be less expensive than rigid printed circuit boards. This is because flexible laminates enable manufacturers to produce circuits on a continuous basis, starting with laminate rolls and directly producing finished boards. </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;"> </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">To produce a printed circuit board and etch a continuous process schematic of the flexible printed circuit board, all production processes are performed in a series of sequentially placed machines. Screen printing may not be part of this continuous transfer process, which creates an interruption in the online process.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;"><br/></span></p><p style="text-align: center; line-height: 1.5em;"><img src="https://jpfile1.oss-cn-shenzhen.aliyuncs.com/allpcb/web/image/20190729/6369999138494909518988788.png" alt="flexible printed circuit board.png"/></p><p style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;"><br/></span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">In general, soldering in flexible printed circuits is more important due to the limited heat resistance of the substrate. Manual soldering requires sufficient experience, so if possible, <strong>wave soldering</strong> should be used.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;"><br/></span></p><p style="text-align: center; line-height: 1.5em;"><img src="https://jpfile1.oss-cn-shenzhen.aliyuncs.com/allpcb/web/image/20190723/6369948762481360639018908.png" alt="wave soldering.png"/></p><p style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;"><br/></span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">When soldering flexible printed circuits, you should pay attention to the following:</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;"> </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">1. Because polyimide is hygroscopic, the circuit must be baked before soldering (for 1 h at 250 °F).</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;"> </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">2. The pad is placed over a large conductor area, such as a ground plane, power plane, or heat sink. The heat sink area should be reduced, as shown in Figure 12-16. This limits heat dissipation and makes soldering easier.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;"> </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">3. When soldering the pins in a dense place, try not to continuously solder adjacent pins and move the solder back and forth to avoid local overheating.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;"> </span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">Information on flexible printed circuit design and processing can be obtained from several sources, however the best source of information is always the producer / supplier of processed materials and chemicals. Through the information provided by the supplier and the scientific experience of the processing experts, high-quality flexible printed circuit boards can be produced.</span></p><p style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;"><br/></span></p>
102
comment
All comments
5306
0
102
Rules about cashback: 1. Valid time: ALLPCB cashback activity will end on April 1st. 2. Capped amount: The capped amount of cashback for each account is $5,000. Each order can get a maximum of $2,000 cashback. That means every author can get $5,000 max. 3. Cashback range: The cashback activity only covers the corresponding PCB order. The order amount for other combined payment products will be invalid. 4. Clicking your own promotional link will be invalid. The same email address, shipping address, contact information, and phone number are all recognized as the same account. 5. ALLPCB has the final interpretation right of the cashback activity.
ALLPCB will donate 2% to the author for this promotion link.