San Jose, CA - The third edition of Flexible Circuit Technology
features new technologies and applications that have developed
over the eight years since the second edition was published. This
updated version on interconnection technology will be available
from BR Publishing of Seaside, Ore., as a full-color PDF e-book,
or in a traditional printed format.
Flex circuits have changed in the eight years since the previous
edition, said Fjelstad. Although structurally unchanged, the
latest edition of the book incorporates emerging technologies
for manufacturing circuits, chip packaging, printed electronics,
radio frequency identification (RFID), and other dynamic areas
of the flex-circuit industry. "There are current applications
and there are futuristic applications, but what's really driving
the industry is volumetric interconnection that lets you design
a circuit flat and then fold it," explained Fjelstad. He wrote
the text for industry newcomers as well as veteran engineers.
Flex and rigid circuits have diverged significantly in recent
years - targeting different markets and occupying unequal amounts
of market share. The sectors are projected to follow such different
patterns that analysts will often consider each separately in
month-to-month or year-to-year industry analyses. Fjelstad believes
the opening range of applications, even more so than advances
in the circuit technology, will revive and expand the flex-circuit
sector. "It's certainly finding more applications. The technology
has a sort of ubiquity, but it does continue to branch out in
more areas." Military and tracking technologies are major R&D
drivers, he added. Fjelstad also finds a lot of variation in
the definitions given for flex circuits. As the definition is
broadened, the market encompassed by the term grows larger.
RFID tags are an example of flex-circuit technology that is
found in wide-spread use and dynamic applications ? wherein
electronic components must be able to bend and move. Fjelstad
discusses the evolution of technologies like RFID tags as incremental
improvements on flex-circuit design and manufacture. "As features
get finer, we are not inventing a new technology, but improving
an existing one," he said. These improvements lead to viable
photoelectrics, such as solar cells, and printed circuits with
conductive nanoparticles comprising the ink.
Fjelstad's final area of concern for flex circuits is the environment.
Printing circuitry onto flexible, organic substrates like paper
or cloth eliminates many of the poisonous materials in the composition
and manufacturing processes of PCBs. Solar-powered devices operating
on flex circuits use clean fuel and reduce emissions. He sees
innovation in flex-circuit usage as leading conversions to safer,
healthier modes of living.
Joe Fjelstad, cofounder, SiliconPipe Inc., may be contacted
at (408)973-1744; jfjelstad@siliconpipe.com
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