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Rigid-Flex Circuits Make Medical Application User Friendly

Vulcan Electric has a developed a set of Rigid-Flex Circuit Interconnect Assemblies using Black Kapton™ to solve a unique medical application. A need to interconnect a large amount of electronics ‐ including brain sensors ‐ and maintain signal integrity in a light-weight, flexible and aesthetically pleasing design was the challenge. The system designed to be placed over a patients head needed to be non-invasive and provide the customer the ability to test sub-systems together and then everything as a top assembly. Vulcan Electric Engineers, working closely with the customers engineers and scientists developed a set of six complex Rigid-Flex Circuit Interconnect Assemblies to accomplish the task. The use of Black Kapton™ for flex section cover layers gave the system, and the customer, a pleasing aesthetic.

The Rigid-Flex Interconnect is a replication of all of the jumper wires, ribbon cables, connectors and printed circuit boards that made up the original design concept, but utilizing much less materials and Print & Etch Technology to create all of the wiring patterns on both rigid and flexible substrates (rigid substrates for component mounting and termination and flexible substrates for bending). The result is a more dense electronic system that is much lighter and smaller (thinner) and more reliable due to the elimination of connectors and solder joints. And finally the Rigid Flex Interconnect concept is less expensive due to highly automated fabrication techniques, advanced materials able to support more dense electronics and the elimination of significant connectivity labor

™ Kapton is a registered trademark of E.I. DuPont de Nemours

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