The Modern Laser Drilling Machines For the Flexible Printed Circuit Boards The world has seen a very rapid growth of high-performance handheld gadgets such as smartphones and the tablets, and this has in turn contributed to the fast rise of the electronic industry. Inside these devices are short interconnections of multi-layered Printed Circuit Boards and electrical connections.
Flexible Printed Circuit Boards The use of flexible Printed Circuit Boards also known as Flex PCBs provides greater options for production of high-end engraved patterns. These boards are constructed from flexible, high-performance plastic materials that are usually polyimide. This enables the board to bend or flex during the use making them be the best for use on PCB drilling machine . The flex PCB machine is a composition of various materials including the copper foil, glass fiber, and electrical insulation. Laser Drilling Machines for Flexible PCBs
There is the emergence of a versatile laser technology that is capable of working with the flexible boards with the use of only one laser source. The flexible laser drilling machines make use of this technology in the drilling, cutting and structuring of the printed circuit boards. The trend towards the production of PCBs has been on the use of boards that have smaller diameters and higher precision with the interlacing of the PCBs on the drilling machine. The flexible laser drilling machines are producing board patterns circuits in a process that make them be even finer with greater precision and pad alignment accuracy.
Technologies for Higher Density The demand for PCBs with higher densities has been accompanied by the need for higher precision, smaller diameters, finer liner lines and faster speeds. To achieve all these requirements, the new revolutionary drilling
machines make use of the new technologies with high speed and precision using panels and multiple beams and high-speed data processing techniques. Characteristics of the modern Drilling Machines for the Flexible PCBs 1. The Drilling technology PCBs can be divided into single-sided, double-sided or multi-layered boards. This depends on the application and the higher mounting densities that are associated with making the products smaller, flexible and more sophisticated. This makes the diameters be reduce to less than 0.3mm for various devices and smartphones. (a) The High-Speed Spindle The spindle defines the rotating part which holds the drill bit. It is a critical component for smaller diameter drilling. The modern drilling machines are aimed at having higher spindle speed and smaller diameters. To cope with these requirements, the laser drilling machines make use of the air bearings with a direct drill bit that is held by a precision collect chuck that is built into the rotor. (b) Hole Position Accuracy The smaller hole diameters that are needed to increase the density of the PCBs require a very precise positioning of where the holes are to be machined. The modern PCB drilling machines achieve this high precision machining by the use of conventional drill machines that use servo technologies that are able to position in 50ms or less on the circuit boards.
Choice of the Laser System for the PCBs
When choosing a laser system, it is necessary to make the following considerations. 1. Make sure that the laser system performance meets the demand of the current and future generations of the flexible circuit board. 2. Make sure that the chosen laser technology is capable of handling the selection of materials such as the metal layers, glass fiber, adhesives and the different substrates. 3. Consider the wavelength issues. Consider the absorption rate and the ablation performance of the desired material. 4. Make sure that the performance of the laser including the power, the regulation and the consistency are wide enough to cover a range of the desired material properly. 5. Make sure that the mechanical design of the system delivers the required accuracy.
The flexible PCB drilling machines consist of optics that are made up of components such as the aperture that is used to control the hole diameter. The lenses are used to select the energy distribution of the laser beam that is generated by the use of the laser head to suit the desired type of the machining. A beam switching mechanism generates multiple beams at higher speed with a consistent pulse energy. The laser demonstrates its superiority over the conventional cutting systems when handling the flexible and very thin substrates with the
following benefits. - It is a stress-free operation - There is enhanced processing quality - It is simple and easy to use.