Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/989774
12 SMT007 MAGAZINE I JUNE 2018 assembly with small components, BGAs, and working on substrates' flex circuits that often have different plane levels. There are higher portions on the circuit, so evening things out is really the challenge to getting the nice, flat, secure surface to mount the components on." Lenthor has been in the flex and rigid-flex fabrication business for 35 years. It brought in-house flex and rigid-flex assembly 10 years ago as a value-add for its customers. Moody notes that it had been difficult for them and their customers at the time to find people in the assembly business that had a proficiency in flex circuit assembly, because there are some peculiarities regarding flex circuitry that you don't find in rigid board assembly. "Being able to bring that in-house, we've been able to advance that portion of our offering to the customers." Dealing with flex circuit assembly, Lenthor does a good mixture of hand assembly and automated assembly. "Flex circuits themselves generally have a combination of some hand assembly, and automated, surface-mount line, Feature by Stephen Las Marias I-CONNECT007 The continuing trend towards miniaturiza- tion and the increasing functionality in smaller and smaller devices are the primary drivers for the growth of the flexible printed circuit market. Everything is getting smaller, faster, and more complex. The segments that have consistently driven it are more on the consumer side, such as mobile phones and smart electronics. On the industrial side, contributing markets include medical—portable medical electronics, diag- nostic electronics—and military/defense. Of course, dealing with flex circuits during assembly is very different from rigid PCBs. And among the key challenges here are the material itself, and the word "flexible," accord- ing to David Moody, director of sales and marketing at Lenthor Engineering: "Flexible circuits are flexible; they aren't flat, they aren't rigid, and they conform to a shape. The other portion of it is the three-dimensionality of a flex circuit; you're trying to do circuit mount