Advantages and disadvantages of flexible circuit board
Strengths:
(1) It can be bent, rolled and folded freely, can be arbitrarily organized according to the requirements of spatial layout, and can be arbitrarily moved and elastic in three-dimensional space, so as to achieve the integration of component installation and wire connection;
(2) Using FPC can greatly reduce the volume and weight of electronic products;
(3)FPC also has outstanding heat dissipation and solderability, as well as the first-class advantages of easy assembly and connection, and low inductive cost. The planning of combining soft and hard also makes up for the slight deficiency of flexible substrate in component carrying ability to a certain extent.
Disadvantages:
(1) the one-time initial cost is high
Because the flexible PCB is planned and made for special applications, the initial circuit planning, wiring and photographic plate cost a lot. Unless there is a special need to use flexible PCB, it is best not to use it when it is usually used in small quantities.
(2) It is difficult to change and repair the soft PCB.
Once the soft PCB is made, the change must start from the base map or the light drawing program, so it is not easy to change. Its surface is covered with a protective film, which needs to be removed before repair and restored after repair, which is a difficult task.
(3) The size is constrained.
Under the condition that flexible PCB is not popular yet, it is usually made by batch process, so it is constrained by the size of production equipment and cannot be made very long and wide.
(4) Improper operation is easy to damage.
Improper operation of the assembly personnel can easily lead to the damage of the flexible circuit, and its soldering and rework require the operation of trained personnel.
Application of flexible circuit board
With the demand trend of light, thin, short and small electronic products, FPC’s military supplies quickly turned to civilian use and consumer electronic products. In recent years, almost all high-tech electronic products that have sprung up have chosen flexible printed circuit board.
In the book High-density Flexible Printed Circuit Board, Japanese scholar Akikura said: flexible printed circuit board is used in almost all electrical products. Nowadays, I’m afraid it’s difficult to find slightly complicated electronic products that don’t use flexible printed circuit board.
Market prospect of flexible circuit board? ? ? ?
(1) Mobile phone stores. As far as mobile phones are concerned, FPC is mainly used as a signal connection part for folding and rotating parts in mobile phones. Nowadays, more than three FPCs are commonly used in mobile phones. With the popularity of high-function mobile phones that are light, thin, short and small, the demand for FPC is driven.
FPC can be used in mobile phone bending, LCD module, camera module, keys, side keys, antenna, battery control and other functions.
At present, FPC is widely used in the HingePart of mobile phones, including folding type, sliding type, lifting type and three-dimensional rotary body. Most of them are double-sided or multi-layered FPC plans, which is the largest output value of FPC in mobile phone applications.
As for key FPC, camera module, antenna or battery FPC, it is the selective planning of mobile phone planners. Under the situation that the above-mentioned selective functions will gradually be included in the standardization plan of mobile phones, it will help to increase the usage of FPC.
According to the 2014 Communication Operation Calculation Bulletin issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, in 2014, there was a net increase of 39.426 million telephone users nationwide, with a total number of 1.536 billion, an increase of 2.6%, down 5 percentage points from the previous year.
In the meantime, the number of mobile phone users increased by 56.98 million, with a total of 1.286 billion, and the penetration rate of mobile phone users reached 94.5/100, an increase of 3.7/100 over the previous year.
Smartphones dominated by Apple and Android phones have become the first choice of mobile phone users. According to the “2013-2014 Annual General Report of China Mobile/Smartphone Mall Seminar”, in 2015, the share of global smartphone users exceeded one-tenth of the global population for the first time. By 2018, one-third of global consumers will be smartphone users, with a total of more than 2.56 billion people.
The smartphone user index in 2018 represents half of the global mobile phone users, which means that function phones will become a minority in the field of electronic communication.
The FPC content of smart phones is higher than that of general electronic products. Smart phones choose 5 ~ 12 FPCs, which is 1 ~ 5 higher than that of utility phones. The output value of each smart phone FPC is about 2 ~ 3 times that of utility phones.
Such a huge shopping mall is bound to drive the rapid development of its related fields, and the camera module, antenna, display and USB cable of smart phones are all inseparable from FPC.
(2) Electronic shopping malls for cars.
Under the trend of car electronization, the requirements of high signal transmission capacity and high reliability of vehicle control systems, such as dashboard display, air quality, acoustics, monitors and sensors, make FPC begin to show its strengths. Under the trend of precision FPC components, coupled with the characteristics of three-dimensional car body, narrow and bent wiring area, the selection of FPC components can better meet the planning requirements.
According to the data of China Automobile Industry Association, in 2014, the production and sales of cars in China increased by 7.26% and 6.86% year-on-year. In the meantime, the production and sales of passenger cars increased by 10.15% and 9.89% year-on-year, which is still the main increase.
(3) Medical monitoring equipment.
In the past ten years, the sales plan of China’s medical device shopping malls has increased from 17.9 billion yuan in 2001 to 212 billion yuan in 2013, with an increase of 11.84 times in 13 years, excluding the influence of price factors. According to the sample survey of Medical Devices Branch of China Medical Materials Association, the national medical device sales plan for the whole year of 2014 is about 255.6 billion yuan, an increase of 43.6 billion yuan over the previous year’s 212 billion yuan, with an increase rate of 20.06%.
As a routine medical equipment in hospitals and other medical institutions, medical monitoring equipment has gradually become widely used in large and medium-sized hospitals.
With the rapid development of China’s economy, the state attaches great importance to the construction of basic medical and health systems at the county level, villages and towns, communities, etc., and with the promotion of internal and external demands such as aging, the second-child policy, consumption promotion, medical reform investment, policy support, etc., as well as the fact that the whole domestic level is maintained at a low level, there is still considerable room for the development of medical monitoring equipment, and the prospect for the development of medical device profession in China is worth waiting for.
To sum up, with the continuous progress of the society’s requirements for information and intelligence, and it has simply penetrated into all walks of life, as mentioned in the article, it is difficult to find slightly complicated electronic products that do not use FPC and FPC components.
As the state will further increase the investment in electronic information construction in various fields, the acceleration of electronic information construction in downstream fields will definitely drive the development of FPC and FPC components.
At the same time, 5G affairs have been fully rolled out across the country, which will also bring new development opportunities for the flexible printed circuit board profession.