Title: Area-distributed-soldering of flexible and rigid printed circuit boards
Abstract: A novel design/process is described which facilitates area-distributed soldering of a flexible-printed-circuit to a circuit pack in an inspectable and repairable manner. In the design, solder joints are formed between surface-mount pads on a rigid printed-circuit-board and plated-through-holes on a flexible-printed-circuit. The joints are formed by heating both the flexible-printed-circuit and the printed-circuit-board to reflow temperatures and then allowing solder which has been deposited on the surface mount pads to rise through the plated-through-holes. Because solder rises up through the plated-through-holes to the exterior surface of the flexible-printed-circuit, spherical solder caps are clearly visible and inspectable. Solder joints are also easily repaired since the flexible-printed-circuit can be reheated to reflow one or all the solder joints. Two connector designs being used in AT&T products which employ area-distributed soldering of flex are discussed.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>
Publication Year: 2002
Publication Date: 2002-12-04
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 2
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot