Advantages of flexible circuit board and soft hard combination board in medical equipment

FPC develops with the passage of time. Now, they have been used in various applications in the medical industry, including drug delivery systems and watches, which can keep an eye on circulatory and respiratory data and send it to the wearer’s cardiologist. In various medical applications, flexible circuit boards have mechanical advantages over rigid PCBs.

1. FPCs enable engineers to install their various electronic components in a compact small package. As a result, the entire final product (medical device) can be placed on the human body (e.g. hearing aid device).
2. FPCs can form complex three-dimensional shapes with branches to multiple connectors, while rigid PCBs cannot.
3. Flexible circuit boards can interface with rigid PCB boards, while flat cables do not need relatively high and bulky connectors, or in the case of rigid flexible structures. They can be integrated with the circuit board and do not require external connectors at all.
4. All these unique functions of FPC and soft/hard combination board make it an ideal choice for wearable devices and medical applications.

The FPCs used in the above applications are becoming smaller and smaller, which may pose some major challenges in PCB technology. This forces manufacturers to choose thinner lines and spaces, thinner copper, thinner substrates, all of which are actually related to the application.