Trends across all industries are playing a key role in the growth and need for expert design and production of flexible circuit, rigid-flex, flexible heaters and associated EMS assembly service. Such is the case at Flexible Circuit Technologies, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.

Headquartered in Minneapolis, MN, Flexible Circuit Technologies (FCT) is one of the premier flexible circuit companies on the globe. FCT provides flexible circuits, rigid-flex, flexible heaters, membrane switches, specialized EMS/assembly services, and product module builds to complete product box builds. The company has extended its offerings to include plastic moldings, and also will be moving toward offering Advanced High Performing Circuits in 2021 with the opening of its newest facility in Zhuhai, China.

Carey Burkett, VP for Flexible Circuit Technologies, noted that FCT provides full service for customers. “Through our USA headquarters, Asia-based production facilities and customer support representatives, FCT provides global coverage enabling us to deliver extremely responsive service along with high quality cost-competitive products,” he said.

“Flexible Circuit Technologies’ headquarters provides responsive support to our customers, including design consultation and optimization, design for manufacturing, quoting, and coordination for prototyping service to full production support,” Burkett noted.

“Our production facilities are based in Asia,” he added. “Shenzhen, China our main hub, is home to our Asia-based management team and program managers who coordinate all prototyping and production services with our various Bare Flex/Rigid-Flex/Flex heater facilities (Xiamen, Jiangmen, and Zhangzhou). Our world-class assembly facility is also located in Shenzhen, where we provide full EMS/assembly, including specialized assembly on flex and rigid-flex, testing services, and product module builds to complete product box builds. FCT is ISO9001, 14001, 13485, IATF 164949 and also performs FDA registered product box build programs.

The company focuses on commercial markets, including medical, automotive, consumer products, industrial, telecom/data, and more. FCT also supports product development/engineer firms, electronic manufacturing services and contract manufacturing organizations.

“We have developed an outstanding customer base that includes start-up organizations to top tier global organizations within each of the markets that we support,” Burkett said. “Given our chosen markets combined with Asia-based production, FCT provides our customers with competitive pricing for the products and assemblies that we produce. We also see an outstanding future for continued growth given the trends across almost every industry related to IoT, connectivity, mobility, wearables, miniaturization of products and the need to pack more electronic capability into smaller areas or spaces.”

Flexible Circuits and Rigid-Flex

Burkett observed that flexible circuits and rigid-flex are the fastest growing solutions within the overall printed circuit board industry.

“Given increased demand and high growth, you now have many companies that are newer or jumping into this market as stated ‘flex suppliers,” he added. “Unfortunately, there is a significant shortage of experienced designers that offer true understanding for flex and rigid-flex inclusive of design rules, the materials, material properties, what can or cannot be done depending upon the application, and how to address more challenging applications.

“This lack of experience adds costs to the customer related to timelines, the number of revisions needed to get to the final solution, an inability to guide the customer to a low-cost solution, and potentially risk in that the solution simply not performing as desired within the given application, Burkett continued.

Burkett said that Flexible Circuit Technologies’ biggest differentiator is that FCT brings the industry’s top design expertise to customers.

“Our overall technical team is led by Mark Finstad, FCT’s senior application engineer, who co-chairs the IPC 2223 Flex Circuit Design committee, is the lead educator across the USA at national and regionally sponsored IPC events and is also a noted columnist on flexible circuits across numerous industry publications,” Burkett said. “Mark brings over 35 years of expertise to our customers in circuit design and fab and is one of the industry’s foremost experts. Beyond Mark, all of our lead application engineers offer more than 30 years of expertise in flex and rigid-flex. We understand the materials, material properties, what can and cannot be done and help our customers to attain the most cost-effective design. It is our expertise that allows FCT to develop cost-effective designs that will perform successfully even within the most challenging of applications.

“If we are able to pull 20% of the costs out in getting to a cost-effective solution, we will be providing our customers with far more value and savings when compared to attaining a few cent savings on the piece price of an ineffective and costly design,” Burkett added. “For FCT, it starts with a design and from there is all about providing our customers with outstanding service/support and in the end, on-time delivery of high-quality products at competitive prices.” 

Burkett noted that Flexible Circuit Technologies has had to overcome some obstacles in developing its flexible circuitry for wearables or other products.

“Most wearable applications are dynamic, and not in a predictable way,” said Burkett. “There are also many other variables such as over-molding, handling by the user, product comfort, and more that must be factored in. Each application must be carefully evaluated to determine what types of stresses the flex will be subjected to, and how best to work around those stresses. Success usually comes through a combination of good general design practices and many decades of experience. With experience comes many learnings of what works, and maybe more importantly, what does not work. By incorporating features and practices that have a good track record, and steering away from less successful methods we can provide a good road map to success for our customers.”

Burkett observed that the outlook is excellent for FCT.

“In 2014, FCT developed a business plan that would have us more the double our size over five years; we achieved that goal and fully expect to attain continued excellent growth for years to come,” he noted.

“2020 will be a challenging year for most; fortunately, we are seeing excellent growth across a number of our medical customers that will help to limit the impact in what will be a soft year given the global impact of COVID-19 across all industries,” Burkett added. “While we continue to do well overall, we will be using 2020 as a year to invest in our overall operations so that we are well-positioned for 2021 and beyond. This includes making investments in our representative/customer care network in support of broadening our presence across the marketplace, domestically and abroad. We also are building a new facility in Zhuhai, China that will address HDI related Flex/Rigid-Flex and Advanced High Performing Circuit Technologies, allowing Flexible Circuit Technologies to meet the growing demand for more challenging advanced circuit solutions across all industries.

“We are extremely optimistic about the future given the continued trend to incorporate electronics into all aspects of our lives across almost every industry. IoT, mobility, wearables, 5G, connectivity, miniaturization and the need to pack more electronic capability into smaller spaces will lead to continued rapid growth for the technologies and solutions that we produce,” he concluded.