NextFlex Proves Manufacturability of Flexible Hybrid Electronics Process

NextFlex, America’s Flexible Hybrid Electronics (FHE) Manufacturing Institute, announced it has successfully proven the robustness of the FHE manufacturing process, producing multiple functional samples of a flexible Arduino system.
 
As part of the Flexible Arduino Microcontroller Project, NextFlex redesigned a device typically built on a rigid printed circuit board (PCB) by printing and attaching thin bare die on a flexible substrate while maintaining the performance associated with traditional packaged ICs . This achievement helps realize FHE’s enormous potential for creating ubiquitous IoT and sensor products for consumer, commercial and military applications.
 
Arduino is an open-source, microcontroller-based electronics prototyping platform that utilizes versatile, easy-to-use hardware and software. It has achieved a high degree of popularity with developers ranging from novices to seasoned experts because it is open source, with publicly available design files and bills of materials (BOMs), and low cost.
 
Up until now, however, Arduino products have been built with traditional packaged die microcontrollers, which deliver high performance and functionality, but have design limitations (fragile, rigid, bulky), therefore complicating integration into newer sensor devices that may be flexible or curved in design.
 
NextFlex tackled this design challenge by developing a process flow for manufacturing a flexible Arduino that reduced the number of process steps by almost two-thirds when compared with traditional electronics manufacturing processes. NextFlex replaced the traditional circuit board with a thin, flexible plastic sheet and used digital printing processes for circuit elements.
 
Die attach of a thin bare die eliminated traditional microcontroller packaging while further enabling flexibility of the product. The new process translates to an anticipated savings in manufacturing time and cost, as well as a significant reduction in the end-product weight – the flexible Arduino is only a third of the weight of the rigid Arduino Mini board.
 
The NextFlex Arduino project’s sponsor is the United States Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).
 
“The possibilities for FHE technology are virtually limitless,” said Dr. Benjamin Leever, the AFRL Advanced Development Team leader and NextFlex government CTO. “Proving the manufacturability of this technology through an open-source platform will expand FHE’s reach even further by providing everyone from industrial product developers to high school students with the opportunity to innovate on new electronics concepts.” 
 
The announcement underscores NextFlex’s mission to facilitate innovation through collaboration and promote sustainable manufacturing ecosystems.
 
“Today’s breakthrough would not have been made possible without the tireless efforts, passion and teamwork among the NextFlex and AFRL teams,” said Jason Marsh,  NextFlex’s director of technology. “Being able to demonstrate the process manufacturability of a low-cost, easy-to-deploy and truly flexible platform gives everyone – and by that, I mean everyone that feeds into the Arduino open source developer community – the ability to create and speed to market innovative new products that harness the power of FHE.”
 
NextFlex first demonstrated a sample flexible Arduino system last September during its annual Innovation Day, where Wilfried Bair, senior engineering manager for device integration and packaging at NextFlex, talked about the creation of the flexible Arduino
 
At this week’s 2018FLEX Conference, which runs today through Thursday, February 15, in Monterey, Calif., NextFlex will demonstrate a working Arduino prototype in its booth, and will also show an Arduino board plugged into a tester. According to NextFlex, the next stage will be to optimize each process step for consistent and repeatable process flow, and to conduct reliability testing to ensure the devices meet all usage requirements.
 

Source: NextFlex