Basics of Rigid Flex Printed Circuit Boards
Before jumping deep into the well of the Rigid Flex Printed Circuit Boards, let us first define what a rigid-flex pc board actually is. The physical combination of Rigid pc board and a flexible pcb is called Rigid-Flex Printed Circuit Board. In this system, the flexible portion is served as the interconnection between the rigid section. They are intentionally designed to reduce the volume space and overall weight of the device. That is why they are best suited for the aerospace, mobiles, and tablets applications. One of the another reasons of using the Rigid-Flex Printed Circuit Boards are that they are less complex because of their less wiring hindrances.
Types:
There are two types of Rigid-Flex PCBs used: Static and Dynamic.
Static:
They are less flexible which means either they are not much flexible during assembly or during the operation.
Dynamic:
They are very flexible. This flexibility serves many advantages during the operation. For example the laptop screen hinge, the rotating disk drive and etc. The purpose of the service decides the material selection.
DESIGNING:
The designing phase is split into two parts: one is mechanical design and the other is electrical design of the components.
The mechanical portion of the Rigid-Flex PCB is crucial. The overall 3-dimensional is important in every PCB but it has become more important here because of the fact that the rigid and flexible portion should work in parallel to satisfy the required task. After the designing of the substrate, the components assembly are being designed.
The second portion of the designing phase is Electrical components designing. The electrical portion is designed in a similar style those of the conventional Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs). The only difference comes how to assembly those components on a rigid and flex portion to ensure the proper compatibility of both the sections.
