Exploiting Stiff PDMS Islands to Enhance Stretchable Printed Circuit Boards

Stretchable electronic circuits are nowadays widely used in the fields of biomedical applications, sports, leisure, and smart textiles. Increasing the lifetime of the often stiff electrical components on a soft substrate is however a major challenge. We present a novel fabrication method for stretchable printed circuit boards (S-PCB) based on well-established manufacturing techniques and a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) substrate of variable stiffness. By placing strain-sensitive electrical components on a stiff island, possible strain is taken away from the structure, and the lifetime of the overall board increases. We describe the mechanical modeling of the S-PCB, the fabrication method, and a functional demonstrator as a proof of concept.