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76 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I DECEMBER 2022 Flexible Circuits: A Road Less Traveled Referencing a famous poem may seem an odd way to start a technology column, but I find it fitting; my long engagement with flexible circuit technology has taken me places, both mentally and physically, that I would never have seen or experienced had I not developed an interest in what was once a marginal inter- connection technology. Flexible circuits were a road less traveled when I first encountered them but taking that path has made all the dif- ference in my career. For the last couple of decades, this column— as well as the musings of other flexible circuit advocates in the industry—have extolled the myriad advantages flexible circuits offer as an interconnection medium. As flexible circuit aficionados, we have collectively stressed the unique abilities of flexible circuits to make three-dimensional inter- connections, which free the designer to create a never-ending variety of electronic products. We have continued to point to the versatility flexible circuits offer as a means of interconnecting elec- tronic elements that must move relative to each other, such as is required for inkjet print heads, the read-write heads of disc drives, the hinges of lap- top computers, and many others. We have also described how effective flexible circuits can be as a medium for controlling the transmission of elec- tronic signals from point to point. With the massive number of opportunities residing in these domains, Flexible Thinking by Joe Fjelstad, VERDANT ELECTRONICS