40 The PCB Design Magazine • May 2017
All About Flex: Flex Circuit Stiffeners
Many flexible circuit designs require selectively
bonded stiffeners…they're just too flexible! Stiff-
ener materials can be any number of materials,
but they are usually polyimide films or FR-4 glass/
epoxy substrates and are available in a wide vari-
ety of thicknesses.
ACFEST: Benchmarking a New
Solderable PCB Finish
New, innovative manufacturing procedures have
been developed by the recently completed proj-
ect, Manufacturing Advanced Coating for Future
Electronics SysTems (MACFEST), which has been
funded by several partners and the government's
Innovate UK.
Printed Circuits LLC Pursues Further
Capacity and Technology Upgrades
to Start 2017
Rigid-flex circuit board manufacturer, Printed Cir-
cuits has started 2017 with a few enhancements
to their equipment line up, designed to increase
capacity, improve technical capability and reduce
process time for their customers.
Weiner's World—March 2017
The CPCA show held at the China International
PCB And Assembly Show was moderately busy
even though the new venue was not quite ready
(no escalators, the "water closets" not fully fin-
ished, the heat was only on for a few hours one
day). It showcased products for PCB Manufactur-
ing, Electronic Assembly Materials and Manufac-
turing Services.
EIPC Workshop on PCB BioMEMS
The Premier Inn conference centre at Heathrow
Airport was the venue for the EIPC workshop on
PCB BioMEMS. What, I hear you ask, is a PCB
BioMEMS? This is an abbreviation for biomedical
(or biological) microelectromechanical systems,
otherwise known as lab-on-chip.
Flex Talk: Flex Material Handling—
An Inside Peek
As increasingly more designs move to flexible mate-
rials to take advantage of space, weight or packag-
ing benefits, it has been clear that flexible circuits
require a different set of rules than their rigid coun-
terparts. We spend substantial time working through
the design to ensure that flex is as robust as possible.
A Conversation with Gene Weiner
In a discussion following the PCB Executive Fo-
rum at IPC APEX EXPO in February, Gene Weiner
opened up to Barry Matties and Patty Goldman on
the state of the North American electronics indus-
try supply chain and the importance of cooperative
efforts up and down that supply chain.
American Standard Circuits Discusses
e-Book on Designing Flex and Rigid-Flex
American Standard Circuits is an industry leader
when it comes to high-technology printed circuit
boards, especially flex and rigid-flex printed circuit
boards. So, it was natural that they would write
about flex and rigid-flex for I-Connect007's new
"Guide to…" e-book series.
PCB Technology Requirements for
Millimeter-Wave Interconnect
and Antenna
The work done by Optiprint AG in support of Mi-
WaveS substantiates that PCB technology can
satisfy the engineering requirements for mmW
circuitry providing the manufacturing capabilities
can match the positional accuracy, feature toler-
ance and surface finish requirements.
Elmatica's New Technology Results in
an Increase for Flex and Rigid-Flex
Printed Circuits
Elmatica has reported an increase in the demand
for flex and rigid-flex boards in the Nordics. New
advanced technology requires flexible circuits to
fulfill challenging form-factor requirements, elimi-
nate connectors and improve performance.
PCB007
Highlights
