Material Selection Requirements and Practical Application of FPC Connector

According to the survey data of Prismark, an information consulting firm in the electronic industry of the United States, the global output value of FPC (flexible circuit board) reached 9.2 billion US dollars in 2011, accounting for 16.6% of the total PCB share; it is expected that by 2016, the global output value of flexible circuit board will reach 13.2 billion US dollars, with an annual composite growth rate of 7.5%, becoming the fastest growing part of the PCB industry. One of the industries, and in the total market share of PCB has further increased to 18.4%. The increasing demand for flexible circuit boards is mainly driven by consumer electronics such as smartphones, tablets, touch products. In addition, the proportion of FPC in high-end electronic products (automotive electronics, medical electronics, etc.) is also increasing.

As a functional component of flexible circuit board, FPC connector is one of the main connecting schemes of flexible circuit to connect circuit board in consumer electronic equipment under the background of the rapid development of electronic devices represented by smart phones towards miniaturization. The application of FPC connector is becoming more and more popular. In the automotive market, FFC/FPC connectors are widely used in GPS devices, LCD displays, radio devices and entertainment devices such as DVD players; in the medical field, FFC/FPC connectors can help to achieve miniaturization of hand-held devices, including patient monitors; and in many cases, light and compact design is the main requirement. FFC/FPC connectors are also being used in military and aerospace applications. In fact, the main advantage of FPC connectors is that they can efficiently utilize the existing space, that is, the space on PCB and the space inside the shell. In addition to cost savings, they also promote compact high mobility design, which is widely used in many electronic equipment market segments. Another advantage of FPC connectors is the ability to provide interconnection for mobile and mobile components, such as: the display screen of digital cameras can be pulled out or flexibly adjusted, while still maintaining an electrical connection with the camera body; or the connection between the display and the body of a flipped, sliding laptop or mobile phone. Wait.

From the market application point of view, FPC connectors are mainly 0.5mm spacing products at this stage, and 0.3mm spacing products have been widely used. Overall, height and pin spacing are the two main development directions of FPC connectors in the future, especially the latter. For example, in the consumer product market, on the one hand, products tend to be miniaturized; on the other hand, a large number of functional modules are constantly integrated into the system, which requires more pins. FPC connectors are required to have more contacts, even smaller spacing, and more. Small shape, and ultimately achieve the goal of high-density integration.

In addition, stability and reliability are still the most important performance indicators of FPC connectors. It requires designers to make detailed and comprehensive analysis with various software before mass production in terms of design, whether from plastic flow, terminal performance, positive force or FPC connector cover, in order to determine its strength. Structures to ensure the quality and reliability of connectors in design. Secondly, in the manufacturing process of FPC connector, manual operation is reduced due to semi-automatic or even full-automatic assembly, detection and packaging process, which also greatly reduces the quality or other problems that may arise.