Flexible Substrates For Smart Sensor Applications

By Dr. Eckardt Bihler, Dr. Marc Hauer, Birgit Neubauer

The requirements for smart sensors are manifold: miniaturized, highly reliable and integrated, cost-effective, hermetic and biocompatible for medical applications. DYCONEX has developed novel and innovative methods to design, manufacture and realize such sensor modules. By combining thin film technology, as known from the semiconductor industry, with traditional flex circuit manufacturing technologies, substrates with enhanced properties can be manufactured and assembled with standard SMT processes. Liquid Crystal Polymer (LCP) as base material is a chemically and biologically stable thermoplastic polymer and allows for hermetic sensor modules having smallest size and lowest moisture penetration available today only with inorganic packaging materials. Large scale, automated production and inexpensive organic materials result in very competitive cost levels.