This document explains different approaches to integrating electronics in textiles. It discusses reliability standards and tests for electronics in textiles. Encapsulation technologies are evaluated concerning their applicability in textile integrated electronics. Furthermore a specific assembly with embroidered wiring and embroidered interconnections has been developed and improved. Two different encapsulation technologies have been developed for this assembly. Standardized tests have been carried out to assess the reliability of the assembly and its encapsulations. Finally the achievements are critically discussed.
Commonplace electronic appliances for consumer or industrial use are still mostly rigid or at maximum flexible entities. The flexibility of foldable units like laptops or cell phones is usually realized through flexible circuit board (FCB) interconnectors. Although flexibility allows for considerably enhanced degrees of freedom in design, it is not compatible with more complex three dimensional curvatures and dynamics thereof. In the past years a number or approaches to realize stretchable electronic circuits in order to reach beyond unidirectional bending or folding of electronics have been reported. In the frame of the European Project STELLA a particular fabrication technology for stretchable electronic systems has been developed at Technische Universitaet Berlin. This technology, termed "stretchable circuit board" (SCB) technology, is derived from conventional printed circuit board manufacturing. Stretchability of the boards is enabled by (i) using polyurethane inst ead of FR4 or polyimide as a carrier material of the copper structures and (ii) a meandering design of the Cu interconnects between commercial (rigid) electronic components. Such boards can be (once) extended by up to 300 % before fracture of the Cu interconnections. For repeated elongation/relaxation cycles elongations with a few percent are allowable in order reach high cycle numbers. Electronic components are assembled after local application of a solder mask and surface finish for solderability. The electronic interconnection is established using a low temperature solder alloy (SnBi, Tm=142 °C). For protection and enhanced system robustness all components are subsequently encapsulated within a polyurethane capping. Systems thus realized can be readily attached to different kinds of surfaces. Most interesting for various application cases is the easy attachment to textile substrates by a simple lamination process. The field use case studies of stretchable systems in the frame of the STELLA are m
This document explains different approaches to integrating electronics in textiles. It
discusses reliability standards and tests for electronics in textiles. Encapsulation technologies are
evaluated concerning their applicability in textile integrated electronics.
Furthermore a specific assembly with embroidered wiring and embroidered interconnections has
been developed and improved. Two different encapsulation technologies have been developed for
this assembly. Standardized tests have been carried out to assess the reliability of the assembly and
its encapsulations. Finally the achievements are critically discussed.
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