Top Industry Leaders in the Flexible Epoxy Resin Market
June 2023The electric cable division of the OKI Group, OKI Electric Cable, has created two new categories of environment-proof flexible printed circuit (FPC) products (Note 1) that can be used in a variety of challenging environments, such as those with high temperatures and high pressures of steam: a heat-proof FPC and a high-pressure steam-proof FPC. Applications requiring high-temperature heat treatment or high-pressure steam sterilisation will see the start of global sales in June. For this fiscal year, sales of at least JPY100 million are anticipated.Flexible printed circuit boards, or FPCs, are made of plastic film as the substrate. They are incredibly thin and flexible in comparison to stiff conventional circuit boards.They can be freely bent, which makes them useful for moving parts that are bent repeatedly, three-dimensional configurations, and small spaces in electronic devices. The technology is essential to lowering the size and weight of electronic devices and generating a wide range of applications across industries because components are mounted on FPCs in the same manner as on rigid circuit boards. Electronics used in both commercial and domestic settings often contain FPCs.The recently created heat-proof FPC enhances copper foil's adherence to the insulating layer by applying OKI Cable's exclusive surface treatment. To enhance its resistance to high-pressure steam, the silicone resin is incorporated into the insulating layer of the high-pressure steam-proof FPC in addition to a proprietary surface treatment. For the heat-proof FPC, this preserves insulation layer adhesion even after 1,000 hours of high-temperature heat treatment at 200°C, and for the high-pressure steam-proof FPC, it does so even after 15 minutes × 250 cycles of high-pressure steam treatment at 132°C and 0.2 MPa. The key players are DIC Corporation, Olin Corporation, Hexion, Kukdo Chemical Limited, Aditya Birla Chemicals, Huntsman International LLC, Emerald Performance Materials, Resoltech, Epoxonic, Cardolite Corporation Spolchemie, Atul Limited, Conren Limited, Intertronics and Mereco Technologies