Guided Interconnect - The Next-Generation Flex Circuits for High-Performance System Design

A high-performance and patent-pending [1] interconnect structure for flex circuits is described in this paper. It is termed Guided Interconnect, as its basic principle is to “guide” the electromagnetic wave of high-speed signaling in a closely-coupled manner. As a result, higher I/O density of up to 40% compared to conventional flexible printed circuits (FPC) can be achieved, while not jeopardizing the signal integrity performance. The above conclusion is supported by both analytical and measurement results, which are in excellent agreement with each other. In addition, this inventive structure also comes with significant mechanical benefit - its flexibility is experimentally demonstrated to be 3 times better than the meshed FPC. In short, this research work has served as an initial working model towards developing a candidate for high-speed, high-performance cables, small form-factor systems, such as tablets, smart phones or 2-in-1s.