Page 12 - IOE_Winter 24

RESEARCH PROJECT TO REPLACE

CONVENTIONAL CABLES

In many miniaturised electronics applications shortage of long, stretchable and robust PCBs
conventional cable wiring is both costly and and interconnects.
material intensive, limiting the potential for
In the field of LED, long, flexible strips are seen as
innovation and product performance.
a means of fostering new applications such as
Now, Wurth Elektronik has launched the Hybrid large, flat light surfaces that integrate into building
Integrated High Performance Electronic Stripes, glazing to emulate natural light. A primary
or HyPerStripes, research project to develop objective of the project is to apply this concept to
technologies and production processes for long, industrial production via a sustainable technology
smart, flexible electronic systems as an alternative platform that offers printing technologies,
to conventional cables. lithographically patterned copper wiring systems
and low-temperature assembly steps in a unified
The HyPerStripes project partners aim to establish
consulting and manufacturing platform.
a technology platform that incorporates
manufacturing techniques for roll-to-roll As a prominent PCB manufacturer Wurth
processing and the integration of electronic Elektronik aims to focus principally on flexible and
components onto very long, flexible, stretchable stretchable PCBs using roll-to-roll processing
printed circuit boards. The objective is to enhance for virtually “endless” electronics with firely
product performance and open up new areas miniaturised structures.
of application, whilst at the same time reducing
[ Reference: West, P., Electronic Specifier, 20th.
manufacturing costs and environmental
November 2023 ]
impact. The project aims especially to develop
stretchable circuit carriers over a metre in length
for cost-effective products and corresponding
manufacturing technologies.
Visit our
Initial application areas are envisaged in
healthcare and LED lighting. In healthcare, website!
minimally invasive procedures enable disease
investigation and treatment without the need
Why not head down to our
for major surgery, but devices such as smart
website and read more
catheters frequently depend on traditional
wiring connections which are manually crafted news in our blog section?
and can represent up to 80 per cent of product
Updated daily with
cost, affecting reliability, manufacturing yield,
hand-picked articles
weight and resource usage. A flexible, thin strip
integrating hybrid electronic components could from around the web...
address these interconnection issues and the
strips may potentially alleviate the current institutionofelectronics.ac.uk

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