What we do (and your mileage may vary, depending on your vendor) is to make
the flexible circuit the size of both boards and the joining portion.  The
two rigid boards are bonded to the flex and the whole assembly drilled and
plated.  This allows a lot of strength in the assembly and gives us two
layers for free on the rigid boards (i.e. a four layer rigid board and two
layer flex gives you six etch layers).  The design is done as a single six
layer board, with route keepouts on layer 3 thru six under the flex area.

--
George Patrick
Tektronix, Inc.
Central Engineering,  M/S 39-512
P.O. Box 500
Beaverton, OR 97077-0001
Phone: 503-627-5272    Fax: 503-627-5587
http://www.tektronix.com
http://www.aracnet.com/~gpatrick

It's my opinion, not Tektronix'


-----Original Message-----

I am in the process of looking into a flex-rigid board design which should
consist of 2 small 4 layer Rigid PCB's joined by a flexible circuit . I have
not designed any flexible boards or hybrids before.

 My questions are mainly about what I need to do in my Layout Tool (Pads
Power PCB) . The board I described above consists of 2 rigid and 1 flexible
board , does this mean I have 3 separate board outlines in my Layout tool ?,
or am I better off with 3 separate PCB files and 3 sets of gerber files and
then using an assembly drawing to show how they should all join-up
together ?

It looks like in Power PCB that I can only have 1 Board outline I can't have
one PCB file with 2 or more separate board outlines.
If anyone can give me a few pointers on my approach to laying out this board
especially anyone who may have used Power PCB for flex-rigid boards I would
appreciate any comments you may have .

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