Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1108006
28 FLEX007 MAGAZINE I APRIL 2019 Flannery: I don't know if they feel the same way. Lenthor has been such a good vendor for us. Our expectations were met 100%. Not that everything went smoothly and we didn't have hiccups around certain items, but we went back and forth on the design. Whether it was a solder mask issue or we wanted to change the shape of the board, study the corners because of the radius of curvature issue, or something else, there was nothing that stood out as prob - lematic. We carefully thought things through from beginning to end, and it helped to have their experience. The nice thing was there was a certain element of, "We've been through this process before, so even though your product is different, we know how to take something different and bring it successfully to the end." Matties: Would earlier collaboration have accelerated the process at all? Flannery: Maybe, but I'm not sure we were ready at GraftWorx. You have to remember that we were on a learning curve with our product as well, and it becomes inefficient to collaborate too soon. We had to do our home - work in terms of coming to the table with what our product requirements were going to be because they were going to put a lot of energy into trying to design a process or a platform to meet our needs. If we started switching before we were ready, it would have been an inef - ficient dance. Then, you start wasting a lot of time going down dead-end alleys trying to fig- ure out if you can do XYZ, but then you find out you don't need to do XYZ. It behooves both parties to make sure that they are ready to come to the table before starting the collab- orative process. Matties: At what point in the process is that defining moment that triggers you be ready for collaboration? Flannery: In a standard product development cycle, you go through certain rounds of proof of concept where you're trying to try to build up this foundation of capability that's going to enable your product to meet everything you want it to do. That's the point where you real- ize, "I need something more. I vetted the fact that I can talk to my microcontroller and I can do standard things, but my value-add—the thing I'm bringing to the market that's spe- cial—needs something extra." In the wearable space, it was our form factor and sensor suite. Once you've built your foundation on stan- dard technology and defined that extra bit that you're going to need help with, you're ready to go to the table. Matties: When you approached this, you knew it had to be a rigid-flex. Were you thinking early on that it was not going to be a tradi- tional rigid? Flannery: Yes, I was pushing in that direction for a couple of reasons. Being a semiconduc- tor guy, I don't like mixed materials, such as FR-4 and polyimide. I was trying to get the most space-efficient platform. The other aspect is the complexity of it. Often, rigid-flex is more expensive than just doing a flex cir - cuit. I was trying to avoid the complexity of something that I didn't want, and yet I had certain needs for a stiff area to reliably sup- port solder bonds. Matties: Did you have the solution in mind before going to Lenthor, or was this a solution that was born in that collaboration? Flannery: I had the needs well-defined, but Lenthor is the one that came up with the solu- We've been through this process before, so even though your product is different, we know how to take something different and bring it successfully to the end.