Flexible Electronics:-The Future of Tech

 We use many gadgets in our day to day lives but have you ever wondered what's the future of these electronics?.The answer is Flexible Electronics.So in this let's take a look at the different approaches to the concept and it's applications.

What are Flexible Electronics?
Flexible Electronics also known as flex circuit is a technology for assembling electronic circuits by mounting electronic components on plastic substrate such as polyimide or transparent conductive polyester.

Manufacturing of Flexible Electronics and different approaches 

Flexible printed circuits (FPC) are made with a photolithographic technology. An alternative way of making flexible foil circuits or flexible flat cables (FFCs) is laminating very thin (0.07 mm) copper strips in between two layers of PET(Polyethylene terephthalate). These PET layers, typically 0.05 mm thick, are coated with an adhesive which is thermosetting, and will be activated during the lamination process. FPCs and FFCs have several advantages in many applications

Another approach suggest that we can make flexible electronics even with silicon.So the approach here is that we take a thin 100 nm layer of silicon and place it over an already stretched piece of rubber.So as soon the stretch of the rubber is removed the circuit gets shrinked but as the layer of silicon is very thin it will not break and will be flexible .This will provide us with a base for the electronic circuit.

Another approach that has been developed for wearable electronics is that we create a mesh network of wires just like we stitch clothes instead of a cotton thread here we will be using thin copper wires out of which some will be water soluble after we stitch the network of copper wires just like clothes we will coat it with rubber as to gain flex.After all this we will dip it into hot water which will dissolve the water soluble circuits present and what we will get is a thin rubber sheet with electronic circuits.

Flexible Circuit Structure Types
1.Single Sided Flex Circuit
2.Double access or back bared
3.Sculptured Flex Circuit
4.Double sided flex circuit
5.Multilayer flex circuit
6.Rigid Flex Circuit
7.Polymer thick film circuit

Applications  of Flexible Electronics



Flexible electronics has tons of applications like wearable electronics where we will be able to integrate electronics into our clothing and accessories like watches,eye glass,contact lenses,belts etc.

A folding phone by Samsung is expected to launch soon and it will use flexible display.OLED panels can be rolled or be folded and are currently the new trend in smartphone industry.

In the automotive field, flexible circuits are used in instrument panels, under-hood controls, circuits to be concealed within the headliner of the cabin, and in ABS systems. In computer peripherals flexible circuits are used on the moving print head of printers, and to connect signals to the moving arm carrying the read/write heads of disk drives. Consumer electronics devices make use of flexible circuits in cameras, personal entertainment devices, calculators, or exercise monitors.

Flexible circuits are found in industrial and medical devices where many interconnections are required in a compact package. Cellular telephones are another widespread example of flexible circuits.

Flexible solar cells have been developed for powering satellites. These cells are lightweight, can be rolled up for launch, and are easily deployable, making them a good match for the application. They can also be sewn into backpacks or outerwear.