We continue to illustrate another example of rigid-flex PCB design.
As shown in the cover image, a typical rigid-flex printed circuit board. It has 3 rigid PCB connected to each other through flexible circuits. Rigid-flex printed circuit boards can be folded to fit into a smaller 3D space of the final product. Another main aspect of rigid-flex printed circuit boards is their flexibility, or bendability.
The flexibility of the flexible part is defined by its bending radius. The bending radius refers to the minimum amount by which the flexible area can be bent. Using the chart below, we can calculate the bending radius of our design.
|
Layers |
Bending Radius (mils/mm) |
|
1 (Single-sided) |
Finished thickness x 6 |
|
2 (Double-sided) |
Finished thickness x 12 |
|
Multi-layer |
Finished thickness x 24 |
However, in some applications, the flexible part of the rigid-flex PCB is frequently bent. This creates many problems that the rigid part of the rigid-flex PCB does not encounter.
In the next news article, we will learn some tips that can effectively avoid these problems.
