Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1140547
JULY 2019 I DESIGN007 MAGAZINE 73 rors shown within standard reports. To convey all rigid-flex information to the fabricator in a com- pletely unambiguous way, an intelligent product model is required. ODB++ has specific format con- structs for rigid-flex to clearly communicate intent and mitigate any ambiguities, and it's planned for IPC-2581. Shaughnessy: What trends do you all see in the flex market both here and overseas? Wiens: The increased product stability and per- formance now possible with rigid-flex have driv- en higher adoption, particularly in consumer and medical wearables and IoT devices. With tighter form factors, flex/rigid-flex is a strong option for dense electro-mechanical structures. Shaughnessy: What's next for Mentor's flex design tools? Wiens: Tighter integration between Xpedition and NX has enabled more intelligent modeling of rigid- flex structures, including bend previews and im- proved ECAD/MCAD collaboration and change management of rigid-flex designs. We're also add- ing extended electrical rule checks specific to rig- id-flex structures. Shaughnessy: Is there anything else you'd like to add? Wiens: As noted at the beginning, teams have been designing rigid-flex for quite some time. By aug- menting our tool flows with flex-aware elements and automation, designers can cut cycle times, im- prove reliability, mitigate risk, and optimize for a lower cost. Shaughnessy: Always a pleasure, Dave. Thanks for your time. Wiens: Thank you, Andy. Visit I-007eBooks.com to download your copies of The Printed Circuit Designer's Guide to… Sig- nal and Power Integrity by Example from Mentor, a Siemens Business, as well as other free educa- tional titles. FLEX007 Nanophysicists Develop High-Performance Organic Phototransistor Researchers from the Physical Institute and Center for Nanotechnology (CeNTech) at the Uni- versity of Münster, headed by Prof. Dr. Harald Fuchs, together with colleagues from China, have developed a novel thin-film organic phototran- sistor (OPT) arrays based on a small-molecule (2, 6-diphenylanthracene—DPA), which has a strong fluorescence anthracene as the semicon- ducting core and phenyl groups at 2 and 6 posi- tions of anthracene to balance the mobility and optoelectronic properties. The fabricated small-molecule OPT device shows high photosensitivity, photoresponsivity and detectivity. "The reported values are all superior to state- of-the-art OPTs and among the best results of all previously reported phototransistors to date. At the same time, our DPA-based OPTs also show high stability in the air," says Dr. Deyang Li. Dr. Saeed Amirjalayer adds, "By combining our experimental data with atomistic simulation, we are, in addition, able to explain the high perfor- mance of our device, which is important for a ra- tional development of these devices." The WWU researchers believe that, therefore, DPA offers great opportunity towards high-per- formance OPTs for both fundamental research and practical applications such as sensor tech- nology or data transfer. The research was published in the latest issue of Nature Communications. The work was funded by the German Research Foundation. (Source: University of Münster)