The 5G technology is the future, and more and more product need to update to 5G version. All 5G products require light weight, miniaturization, multifunction and assembly desification. This means those products will require higher requirement, the rigid-flex PCB is the answer.
As we know, rigid flex PCB is a type of special flexible PCB that made of flexible substrate material and feature more advantages than ordinarily rigid PCB.
What is Rigid Flex PCB?
Flex-rigid PCB is a special flexible PCB that conbine flexible features and also provide a good rigid perfermance.
It’s a hybrid PCB design that intergrates elements from both hardboard and flxible PCB. That’s the reason why RF PCB have rigid at some points on the board and flexible at others
It’s fabricated through orderly and selective layer stackup of rigid and flex PCB. The 4 layer rigid-flex PCB is the normal type, and more complex RF PCB consist of more layers.
Each layer of Rigid-flex PCB connection is through holes or plated holes.
The advantages of rigid-flex PCB:
• Lower thickness
• Lighter weight
• Dynamically bendable
• Accessible for 3D interconnection assembly
• Higher freedom on electronic design and mechanical design
• More space saving
How to manufacturing Rigid Flex PCB?
Rigid-Flex PCBs Manufacturing Processes is complex. If you know how to manufacturing the traditional rigid PCB board processes, those processess will be more easy to understand. But compared to the normal PCB fabrication, it is time consuming and laborious.
Manufacturing method of rigid-flex PCBs
The manufacturing process is characterised by the pressing of two different layers of material. The first stage is to produce the FR4 cores in the same way as a multilayer. In parallel, the single or double layer flex circuit is produced on polyimide material.