PCB Tech - Introduction of FPCB material characteristics

FPCB, also known as flexible printed circuit board, is also referred to as soft board. Compared with hard, non-flexible PCB or HDI, FPCB forms a sharp contrast of soft and hard material characteristics. It has become equivalent in the design of electronic products today. Common soft and hard interoperable mixed use flexibility, and this article will focus on the soft characteristics of the soft board, discuss from the perspective of materials, manufacturing processes and key components, and explain the use restrictions of the soft board.

FPCB material characteristics

The product characteristics of FPCB, in addition to the soft material, actually have a light texture and a very thin/light structure. The material can be flexed many times without breaking the insulating material of the hard PCB. The flexible plastic substrate and wire layout of the flexible board make the flexible board unable to cope with the excessively high conduction current and voltage. Therefore, the flexible board design is almost invisible in the application of high-power electronic circuits. Power consumption electronic products, the use of soft boards is quite large.

Because the cost of the soft board is still controlled by the key material PI, the unit cost is high, so when designing the product, the soft board is usually not used as the main carrier board, but the key design that requires "soft" characteristics is partially applied. Above, for example, the soft board application of digital camera electronic zoom lens, or the soft board material of the optical drive read head electronic circuit, are all due to the situation where the electronic components or functional modules must be moved and the hard circuit board materials are not compatible., An example of designing a soft circuit board.

It was mostly used in aerospace and military applications in the early days, and now it shines in consumer electronics applications.

In the 1960s, the use of soft boards was quite common. At that time, the unit price of finished soft boards was high. Although they were light, bendable, and thin, the unit cost was still high. At that time, they were only used for high-tech, aerospace, and military purposes. For more. In the late 1990s, FPCs began to be widely used in consumer electronic products. Around 2000, the United States and Japan were the most common producers of FPCs. The main reason was that FPC materials were under the control of major suppliers in the United States and Japan. Due to the limitations, the cost of flexible circuit boards remains high.

PI is also known as "polyimide". Among PI, its heat resistance and molecular structure can be divided into different structures such as fully aromatic PI and semi-aromatic PI. Fully aromatic PI belongs to the linear type. The materials are Infusible and infusible and thermoplastic substances, the properties of infusible materials cannot be injection molded during production, but the material can be compressed and sintered, and the other can be produced by injection molding.

Semi-aromatic PI, Polyetherimide belongs to this kind of material. Polyetherimide is generally thermoplastic and can be manufactured by injection molding. As for thermosetting PI, different raw material characteristics can be used for lamination molding of impregnated materials, compression molding, or transfer molding.

FPCB board material has high heat resistance and high stability performance

In terms of the final formed products of chemical materials, PI can be used as gaskets, gaskets, and sealing materials, while bismale-type materials can be used as the base material of flexible multilayer circuit circuit boards. Fully aromatic materials are organic in use. Among the polymer materials, it is the material with the highest heat resistance, and the heat resistance temperature can reach 250~360°C! As for the bismale type PI used as a flexible circuit board, the heat resistance is slightly lower than that of the fully aromatic PI, generally around 200°C.

bismale type PI has excellent mechanical material properties, extremely low temperature changes, and can maintain a highly stable state in high temperature environments, with minimal creep deformation and low thermal expansion rate! In the temperature range of -200~+250°C, the change of the material is small. In addition, the bismale type PI has excellent chemical resistance. If immersed in 5% hydrochloric acid at 99°C, the material's tensile strength retention rate Can still maintain a certain level of performance. In addition, the bismale type PI has excellent friction and wear characteristics, and it can also have a certain degree of wear resistance when used in applications that are prone to wear.

In addition to the main material characteristics, the structure of the FPCB substrate is also a key factor. The FPCB is a cover film (upper layer) as an insulating and protective material, and the insulating base material, rolled copper foil, and adhesive form the overall FPCB. The substrate material of FPCB has insulating properties. Generally, two major materials, polyester (PET) and polyimide (PI), are commonly used. PET or PI each has its own advantages/disadvantages.

FPCB production materials and procedures improve the flexibility of the terminal

FPCB has many uses in products, but basically it is nothing more than wiring, printed circuits, connectors, and multifunctional integrated systems. According to the function, it can be divided into space design, change its shape, adopt folding, flexural design and assembly, and FPCB design can be used to prevent the electrostatic interference problem of electronic equipment. With the use of flexible circuit boards, if the cost is not considered, and the production quality is directly structured on the flexible board, not only the design volume is relatively reduced, but the volume of the overall product can also be greatly reduced due to the characteristics of the board.

FPCB's substrate structure is quite simple, mainly composed of the upper protective layer and the middle wire layer. When mass production is carried out, the soft spot circuit board can be matched with positioning holes for production process alignment and post-processing. As for the use of FPCB, the shape of the board can be changed according to the space needs, or it can be used in a folded form. As long as the multi-layer structure adopts anti-EMI and static resistance insulation design on the outer layer, the flexible circuit board can also achieve high-efficiency EMI problems to improve the design. .

On the key circuit of the circuit board, the uppermost structure of the FPCB is copper, which includes RA (Rolled Annealed Copper), ED (Electro Deposited), etc. The manufacturing cost of ED copper is quite low, but The material will be more prone to fracture or faults. The production cost of RA (Rolled Annealed Copper) is relatively high, but its flexibility is better. Therefore, most of the flexible circuit boards used in the high deflection state are made of RA materials.

As for the forming of FPCB, it is necessary to bond different layers of covering layer, calendered copper, and base material through an adhesive. Adhesives generally used include Acrylic and Mo Epoxy. There are two main types. Epoxy resin has lower heat resistance than acrylic and is mainly used for household goods. Acrylic has the advantages of high heat resistance and high bonding strength, but its insulation and electrical properties Poor, and in the FPCB manufacturing structure, the thickness of the adhesive accounts for 20-40μm (micrometers) of the overall thickness.

For highly flexural applications, reinforcement and integrated design can be used to improve material performance

In the FPCB manufacturing process, the copper foil and the substrate are made first, and then the cutting process is performed, and then the perforation and electroplating operations are carried out. After the holes of the FPCB are completed in advance, the photoresist material coating process is started, and the coating process is completed. In the FPCB exposure and development process, the circuit to be etched is processed in advance. After the exposure and development processing is completed, the solvent etching operation is carried out. At this time, after etching to a certain extent, the conductive circuit is formed, and the surface is cleaned to remove the solvent. The adhesive is evenly coated on the FPCB base layer and the surface of the etched copper foil, and then the covering layer is attached.

After completing the above operations, the FPCB has been roughly 80% completed. At this time, we still have to deal with the connection points of the FPCB, such as increasing the opening of the guide welding process, etc., and then perform the appearance processing of the FPCB, such as using laser cutting After a specific appearance, if the FPCB is a soft and hard composite board or needs to be welded with the functional module, then the secondary processing is performed at this time, or it is designed with a reinforcement board.

FPCB has many uses, and it is not difficult to make. Only FPCB itself cannot make too complicated and compact circuits, because too thin circuits will cause the copper foil cross-sectional area to be too small. If the FPCB is flexed, it is easy The internal circuit is broken, so the circuit that is too complicated will mostly use the core HDI high-density multilayer board to deal with the related circuit requirements, only a large number of data transmission interfaces or data I/O transmission connections of different functional carrier boards.