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JULY 2020 I DESIGN007 MAGAZINE 83 designers would like to make something per- fectly the first time out. That's how I feel. I recently wrote a column about the difference between going from design for manufactur- ing to design with manufacturing. In a simi- lar fashion, columnist Dana Korf had a recent interview that I thought was very insightful. He understands the designer really needs to understand manufacturing. This flex circuit workshop will help them to understand the next pieces. How do you manu- facture? What materials do you use? All of the bits and pieces, hopefully in a logical order, will allow the user to appreciate what goes into flex circuits and what needs to be accounted for if you're going to be successful on your first pass. Matties: Let's talk a little bit about who should be viewing this course. The course is probably a four-hour time commitment. Each of the nine sections is about 20 minutes or thereabouts. Who should be watching this seminar—any- body interested in flex or incorporating flex into their products? Fjelstad: Anybody could be a prospective audi- ence member. If you're engaged in designing or using electronic interconnections, flex is argu- ably one of the most versatile interconnection technologies out there. I did some work at Boe- ing, building rigid-flex back in the late '70s, and we had no guidebook; we learned on the fly. Later, I was involved in the manufacturing and development of processes for flex in the mid- '80s. But even then, it was not a mainstream technology by any stretch of the imagination. However, today, if you open the most advanced products out there, you're very likely going to find a flex circuit in one place or another. And as I say in the seminar, there are many reasons to use flex. It isn't just because it's flexible; it's also thin, lightweight, and high-performance. It allows you to do very fine-line features, which are becoming increas- ingly important. It has a lot of attributes that make it very attractive. Matties: Do you touch on printed electronics as well? Fjelstad: Yes, we cover printed electronics briefly. In my book Flexible Circuit Technology, which is going into its fifth edition, there is an entire section on printed electronics that I did with Happy Holden. That is going through a revision right now to make it current. There is another section in that book on stretchable circuits that I did with Jan Vanfleteren from Ghent University in Belgium. Those are two areas that are becoming of increasing interest. And of course, there's a little bit of confusion that has been injected into the idea of flexible circuits with the term that's been generated in the last several years where they talk about "flexible hybrid" electronics. To me, it's kind of a marketing thing. On the bright side, they have generated a lot of funds to be able to continue to develop and stretch out the capacity of flexible cir- cuit technology. I'm kind of ambivalent as to whether we really needed a new term. If the branch branding brings minds to explore the benefits of flexible circuit technology, I say, "Godspeed." Still, much of what they're talk- ing about is covered in what we refer to as flex- ible circuits, and since it has a long history, I figured there's no reason to suddenly treat it like flex is a past technology. It's very current technology and will continue to be. Matties: We appreciate you putting this course together, as well as your books and your ongo- ing commitment to helping the industry learn and improve. Fjelstad: We all travel the road built by those who went before us, and if we can extend it a little bit, then we've done our job and been blessed. I've been blessed in this industry to work with so many giving people. It's just a part of our DNA to teach one another and then make everything a little bit better than it was before. Matties: Exactly. Joe, we certainly appreciate your time today. Thank you very much. Fjelstad: You're most welcome. FLEX007