Top 6 Quality Issues Seen in Flex & Rigid-Flex Printed Circuit Boards

Identifying and Overcoming Manufacturing Challenges

Rigid-flex and flex PCBs have moved towards becoming more standard and easily accessible with every passing year. While their quantities and technology have grown, so have the quality issues that can persist in the PCBs, presenting equally complex problems. No one wants to see quality issues, but much like taxes, they are bound to present themselves in some manner, whether it be an accidental scratch after a board was fully assembled or catastrophic delamination, they’re bound to pop up in some degree or manner somewhere at least once.

The key to these quality issues is always knowing where they came from. Many times, knowing the source of the problem can eliminate most of the work in solving it, since the solution at times can simply be future prevention. Alongside that, sometimes quality issues can be so negligible, so small, that their solution is to just ignore them, whether it be a tiny, non-destructive scratch in soldermask or that adhesive void that doesn’t cause the stiffener to pull away from the material. That isn’t to say not to attempt to prevent them in the future, just that quality issues can range in severity and action plans in response.