Jack,

At a previous employer, we assembled a significant amount of products on
flex (TH, SMT, Chip on Flex and Flip Chip on Flex).  We normally used custom
carrier pallets.  These pallets were constructed of Delmat or similar
materials or stainless steel for clean room applications.  They used a
variety of securing methods, including low profile clamps, spring loaded
pins, and/or bottom side ports that interfaced with internal vacuum sources
in the assembly equipment.  For a surface mount assembly, pallets with
integrated, low profile pins with lateral spring/torsion bars worked well.
Flex products were assembled single up and in multi-up panels.  Multi-up
flex panels are easier to work with (i.e. you can have dead zones for
tooling holes), but depending on the individual circuit design and the
depanelization technique, it can make it more difficult to achieve uniform
tensioning across the entire circuit.

Most of the "high-end" pallet manufacturers are familiar with these
techniques. One supplier that we frequently used and is familiar with thin,
flex applications is Process Automation and Tool, in Huntsville, Alabama.
Their web site is www.autogroup.com. There is certainly no need to hand
assembly your product.

Phil Yates
256-679-6749

-----Original Message-----
From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Jack C. Olson
Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2003 9:11 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [TN] Flexible circuit assembly


I need some advice from the assemblers out there.

I'm designing a flex with LEDs/stiffener on half of
it, and exposed rectangular pads at the floppy end.

kind of like:

[O=O=O=O=O=O]=============E


Our typical designs are rigid flex, and I usually
panelize them with break-away rails attached to the
rigid portion, which we remove afterwards.

Maybe I just haven't had my coffee yet, but I can't
think how to panelize a long floppy like the one above?
We don't get the bare boards one-up do we?

There has to be a way to support them for automated
assembly, right? Do you make a fixture or something?

We do NOT want to hand-assemble these!

Jack ("early fog, burning off by noon")

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