Including: Polyester & Polyimide (Kapton)

Flexible circuits include flat flexible cables, flexible printed circuits and rigid-flex assemblies that are constructed of Copper conductors laminated between layers of flexible dielectric material. The most common dielectric materials used for flexible circuits are Polyimide and Polyester.

THE Laser-Cuts DIFFERENCE

Lasers are becoming increasingly necessary in this industry as parts become more complex and circuit densities increase. Additionally, Copper does not absorb the light energy wavelength used by CO₂ lasers. This means Beam Dynamics laser systems are perfect for Polyimide or Polyester stripping in the manufacture and finishing of flexible circuits.

Polyimide, also known by its DuPont brand name as Kapton, is more expensive than polyester, but is often chosen because of its excellent thermal, mechanical, chemical and electrical properties. Beam Dynamics flex circuit cutting systems utilize lasers at a wavelength 3 times the energy of the standard laser. The higher energy absorption results in quicker vaporization of the material and smaller Heat Affected Zone (HAZ) damage, which greatly minimizes the charring that normally occurs when laser cutting Kapton.

The manufacturing process used to create flexible circuits involves sandwiching circuit assemblies between sheet materials in a heated platen press. The process can result in some float and movement of parts. For this reason, most Beam Dynamics flexible circuit customers will select to use our machine vision system to identify and register individual circuit structures before depanelization.