Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1295812
OCTOBER 2020 I DESIGN007 MAGAZINE 81 Shaughnessy: Where do you see your technol- ogy moving in the future? Mark Finstad: We see a lot of high-speed require- ments. That has become a significant driver when people are selecting vendors. To support these high-speed applications, our new facil- ity will be set up to process high-speed, low- loss materials, such as LCP and PTFE. A lot of the equipment we purchased will cater to processing those different kinds of high-speed materials. I haven't seen devices getting a lot smaller because everything has already been shrunk to where it's almost too hard to handle. But now they're just trying to put 10 times more functionality into the same sized package. What that means to us is that even though the circuit may not be getting smaller, all of the features in that circuit are getting smaller. The challenge is to be able to do that in high vol- ume and in a good yield. Shaughnessy: Do you see more people who are being squeezed into having to use flex for the first time? I see some companies switching to flex because rigid boards won't fit in the appli- cation anymore. Finstad: In reality, most flex circuits aren't replacing the rigid boards; they're replacing wires, wiring harnesses, and cable assemblies. Many customers find that they are running out of room for discrete wires because they take up a lot of space. They also find that wiring har- nesses can have wiring errors and can be hard to assemble. Flex ends up being a lot more reli- able, and it takes up a fraction of the volume with much lower mass. It's just a much neater, more reliable package when you're all done. Burkett: Absolutely. We see many companies being driven to these solutions, given the trends mentioned earlier. Often, engineers and designers do not have extensive experience in using these solutions, and there is a lack of true expertise in the supply base. Typically, custom- ers and prospects come to FCT to obtain design consultation and guidance. We also are doing many educational webinars for customers and prospects in support of their efforts. Shaughnessy: Do you get a lot of the new designers who have been designing rigid for 30 years and find they have to design their first flex circuit? Do they ask you what to do? Burkett: We do. Typically, engineers seek guid- ance in the design phase. We encourage cus- tomers and prospects to seek design support as early on in the process as possible. Attaining experienced design consultation is where cus- tomers can gain significant savings, including cutting down the number of revisions to get to the final solution and attaining true cost-effec- tive designs that will perform properly within the given application. Given the rapid growth in the need for flex- ible circuits and rigid-flex, it has created a limited pool of true experts that can support customers with design expertise. Mark is our director of application engineering and co- chairs the IPC-2223 Flexible Circuit Design Committee; he is one of the top experts on the globe. Mark, along with our team of applica- tion engineers and our CAD team, offers 25–30 years of flex/rigid-flex expertise. Our group of Mark Finstad