Flat Flexible Cable

Flat Flexible Cables (FFC), or ribbon cables are well known in the electronics industry as a means of electrical systems interconnection. They have gained widespread acceptance and are gaining prevalence over conventional round wire systems because of their compact design, low cost, and ability to bend. FFC are utilized in internal wiring of electronic equipment such as personal computers and communication equipment. They are also applied in mobile phones, the connection between the body of a laptop computer and its lid, and other consumer electronics requiring small and lightweight flexible cables.

Flat flexible cables (FFC) have a plurality of electrical conductors that are molded inside a flexible, electrically insulative material or conduit. The conductors, which may be round or flat in cross-section, typically have very small dimensions and are spaced apart in a parallel configuration. The width and thickness of the conductors can be customized depending on the current carrying capacity requirements. The number of conductors can vary from 3 to 4 up to 60 or more. The standard spacing available is: 0.5mm, 1.00mm, 1.25mm, 1.27mm, 2.54mm. At the connection of the flat cable, the two insulating covering layers are removed to expose the terminations of the conductors. The exposed terminations of the conductors are connected, for example, to the core conductors of other cables.

An electrical connector assembly for flexible flat cable used to electrically connect a flexible printed wiring board is called an FFC or FPC connector. To enable effective contact with bare ends of the flat cable, the insertion socket is normally designed in two ways, namely, a bottom-contacting type and a top contacting type. Use of low insertion force (LIF) and zero insertion force (ZIF) connectors on printed circuit boards for receiving a flexible printed circuit (FPC) or a flexible flat cable (FFC) is well known in the field.

Flat Flexible Cable Assemblies are supplied for a large diversity of applications, such as Scanners, Notebooks,DVDs, LCD Monitors, Fax Printers, Digital Cameras, Telephones, Medical Equipment, Controllers, Radios, Appliances, as well as the widest range of harnesses for Consumer Electronics.

Advantages of using Flat Flexible Cables:

• Flat Flexible Cables provide a high density of connections in a thin flexible profile
• They are a perfect fit in small physical spaces.
• They are ideal solutions where shock and vibration issues are a concern.
• Perfect substitutes where fine pitch mechanical connectors are too fragile.
• An economical path to blackuce the cost of custom tooling..
• Highly customizable, and custom configurations combine data lines and power lines.

Flexible printed circuit (FPC) 

Printed circuit boards (PCB) are basic components of electronic products. Printed circuit boards are classified into rigid printed circuit boards and flexible printed circuit boards (FPC). The rigid printed circuit board is principally applied in a motherboard or a peripheral card of a computer, a communication product, such as a board of a mobile phone. In recent years, portable electronics such as cell phones, digital cameras, camcorders and so on have dramatically reduced sizes and weights while internally included many built-in electronic components. Flexible circuit structures have been of particular interest in recent years, because flexible circuit structures have many advantages over rigid circuit structures. The flexible printed circuit board has properties of lightness, soft, thinness, smallness, ductility, flexibility and high wiring density, the shape of the flexible printed circuit board can be changed according to space limitations.

They are largely used in portable electronic products, such as notebook (NB), mobile phone, personal digital assistant (PDA) and information appliance (IA). For example, the flexible printed circuit board can be used as a connection between a liquid crystal display (LCD), a floppy disk driver (FDD), a hard disk driver (HDD) or a compact disc read only memory driver (CD-ROM) to a motherboard.

A flexible printed circuit (FPC) electrical connector is often used to connect electrical circuits of an FPC to electrical circuits of a printed circuit board or to electrical conductors of an electrical cable. A zero insertion force (ZIF) connector typically provides an electrical interface between the flexible printed circuit and a printed circuit board.

CONNECTOR TERMINOLOGY

ZIF (Zero Insertion Force)

This connector style allows the highest possible number of mating cycles (30) for FFC/FPC. This connector incorporates a mechanical slider mechanism which snaps down over the cable after it is inserted into the insulator body.

LIF (Low Insertion Force) / NON ZIF

This style is the most cost effective FFC/FPC connector while still providing reliability. The prepared cable is gently pressed into the insulator slot. There are no moving parts, however, maximum durability is 10 mating cycles.

FUNCTIONAL COMPARISON OF ZIF AND LIF

	Durability	Reliability	Cost	Size
ZIF	Better	Better	Good	Good
LIF	Good	Good	Better	Better

  有ZIF的FFC