Flexible and Rigid-Flex PCBs
Adaptable PCB Solutions for Modern Applications
Flexible and rigid-flex PCBs offer unmatched design freedom and functionality for industries requiring lightweight, space-efficient, and durable circuit boards. Candor provides advanced solutions tailored to meet your unique specifications.
What Are Flexible and Rigid-Flex PCBs?
A Fusion of
Flexibility and Reliability
Designed to conform to small or irregular spaces
Offering solutions where rigid PCBs cannot fit. Rigid-flex PCBs combine rigid and flexible sections into a single hybrid board, ideal for applications requiring both stability and adaptability.
Well suited for evolving technological demands.
Flexible PCBs use copper for conductivity, polyimide for insulation, and epoxy or acrylic adhesives for bonding. Features like heat sinks, impedance control, and shielding enhance performance,
Candor flexible products
Multilayer
Capabilities
Meet requirements with up to 10 layers, with or without stiffeners.
Flex – Rigid
Combo
Supporting designs up to 10 layers for optimal flexibility and durability.
Sequential
Blind/Buried Vias
Sequential blind and buried vias for your specific design needs.
Thin boards?
No problem
Boards with ultra-thin .5 mil cores, offering unmatched adaptability.
Flex vs Rigid Flex
Understanding the Difference
Flexible and rigid-flex PCBs each offer unique benefits, from adaptability to stability. Choosing the right type depends on your application’s design requirements and environmental challenges.
Flexible PCBs
Flexible PCBs adapt to tight or irregular spaces where rigid boards fail. Their lightweight design reduces weight, improves thermal management, and boosts durability. Ideal for environments with vibrations or stress, they simplify designs by replacing standard connections, making them perfect for use automotive and compact electronics.
Extremely low weight and thickness
High mechanical resistance
More capable design in small or uniquely shaped spaces
Resistance to atmospheric agents
Superior electromagnetic immunity
Resistance to high temperatures
Rigid-Flex PCBs
Rigid-flex PCBs combine the stability of rigid circuits with the flexibility of flexible ones, offering enhanced reliability and adaptability. They reduce assembly costs, fit into tight spaces, and endure stress and extreme temperatures, making them ideal for aerospace, medical devices, and compact, high-performance designs.
Enhanced space efficiency
Can be folded or bent to fit
within tight spaces
Reduced assembly costs
Improved overall system reliability
Designed to withstand mechanical stress, vibrations, and temperature
Resistance to high temperatures
For particular needs
Super Conducting Flex Offerings
What They Are
Superconducting flexible circuits use NbTi conductors for near-zero resistance below 9K. Their stripline design minimizes heat transfer, ensuring efficiency in cryogenic systems like quantum computing and low-temperature research.
How They Benefit Customers
These circuits provide low-loss signal transmission with minimal heat. Their flexibility simplifies integration, reducing stress, while shielding and impedance control enhance signal integrity and overall system reliability.
FAQ
What is the difference between flexible and rigid-flex PCB?
Flexible and rigid-flex PCBs serve similar purposes, as both connect electronic components in various devices. Where a traditional rigid circuit board is built upon an unbendable base layer, flexible and rigid-flex PCBs, called flex circuits, are built on a flexible base that can bend, twist, and fold.
Flexible circuits are more than PCBs that can bend, and rigid-flex PCBs are manufactured differently to offer various performance benefits, such as remaining rigid in some areas and staying flexible in others.
Several differences might make an engineer choose between a flexible or rigid-flex PCB, including conductive material, manufacturing process, and total cost. Because flexible circuits have to bend, different types of flexible rolled annealed copper must be used instead of traditional electro-deposited copper. Flexible PCBs also have to utilize a coverlay to protect a flexible PCB’s exposed circuitry, which can make different models of flexible PCBs more expensive. Because flex circuits cost more than rigid ones, rigid-flex circuit boards bridge the cost gap between flexible and traditional PCBs. However, flex circuits also allow engineers to shrink the overall size of their products, which can lead to more indirect savings and reduce the total resource usage.
Consider your application’s demands when choosing between flexible and rigid-flex PCBs. Your industry’s preferred circuit board type and the overall effect of using a particular type of board can majorly impact cost and profits.
What industries commonly use flexible and rigid-flex PCBs?
Several different industries commonly use flexible and rigid-flex PCBs, including:
- Consumer Appliances – Electric irons, UV water purifiers, lighting systems, solar power systems, remote controls, washing machines, mobile phones, Microwave ovens, wearable electronics, portable music devices
- Industrial and Manufacturing – Control panels, industrial air conditioners, automation, test equipment, electrical systems
- Telecommunication – CCTV surveillance systems, transmission media, signal processing systems, wireless media, communication satellites, handheld units, routers and servers
- Aerospace – Environmental test chambers, motion sensors, noise and vibration testing systems, control tower systems, radar equipment, avionics systems, radio communication systems, global positioning systems
- Automotive Industries – Navigation, music systems, traction control systems, entertainment devices, displays, comfort control systems, electronic control modules
- Military – Tracking and surveillance systems, aircraft missile launch systems, GPS, weapon guidance systems, communication systems
- Medical – Wireless systems, imaging equipment, drug delivery systems, cochlear implants, patient monitoring systems, pacemakers
What is the future of the PCB industry?
The PCB industry is currently experiencing an explosion of emerging trends and technologies. As the latest technological advancements change and grow, PCBs and their variants have become more commonplace. From flexible PCBs to rigid-flex PCBs to HDIs, the transformative potential of these technologies continues to enrich our lives.
There are a few groundbreaking advancements that have revolutionized PCB design. Flexible PCBs are a remarkable achievement that offers enhanced durability and flexibility, making them superior to traditional rigid PCBs in many instances. Both flexible and rigid-flex PCBs are particularly useful in applications where dynamic movement or space constraints present a challenge, and have created new leaps in automotive electronics, medical devices, consumer electronics, and more.
High-density interconnects, or HDIs, allow for increased functionality in smaller form factors, by employing micro vias, blind vias, and buried vias alongside advanced manufacturing techniques. HDIs achieve higher circuit densities, reduce signal propagation delays, enable PCBs with multiple layers and finer trace widths, and improve overall miniaturization and performance. This technology has allowed for incredible advancement in tablets, smartphones, computers, video game consoles, and other high-performance electronic devices.
Internet of Things (IoT) devices have significantly influenced PCB design, and led to an exponential increase in connected devices. Demands for seamless data communication and energy efficiency have led to PCB growth, where new circuit boards are capable of handling wireless connectivity, low-power components, sensor integration, and compact design. This has enabled new leaps in wearable devices such as smartwatches, fitness trackers, and medical wearables.
These innovations in miniature and wearable devices have only been possible because of PCBs that can meet unique requirements and demands. As emerging trends grow and change, Candor is at the forefront with superior, high-quality PCB designs.