Flexible flat cable

FFC including connectors, used in the Samsung SGH-U700 mobile phone.

35 conductor flexible flat cable

Flexible flat cable, or FFC, refers to any variety of electrical cable that is both flat and flexible. A flexible flat cable is a type of flexible electronics. However, the term FFC usually refers to the extremely thin flat cable often found in high density electronic applications like laptops and cell phones. Where used to connect to flat panel displays, FFCs may also be referred to as flat panel cables (FPC).^{[citation needed]} Sometimes the term FPC (flexible printed circuit) is even --somewhat inaccurately-- used for any type of FFC.^{[citation needed]} FFC is a miniaturized form of ribbon cable, which is also flat and flexible. The cable usually consists of a flat and flexible plastic film base, with multiple metallic conductors bonded to one surface. Often, each end the cable is reinforced with a stiffener to make insertion easier or to provide strain relief. The stiffener makes the cable slightly thicker.

Specifications

Pitch - refers to the spacing of the conductors. The pitch typically refers to the distance from the center of one conductor to the center of its neighboring conductor. A single FFC can have different pitches between different conductors on the same cable, however this is uncommon. FFC cables are available in many pitches, such as 0.500 mm, 0.625 mm, 0.635 mm, 0.800 mm, 1.00 mm, 1.25 mm, 1.27 mm, 2.00 mm, 2.54 mm, but the most common pitches are 0.500 mm and 1.00 mm.

Exposure Length - the length of the electrical contact that has been exposed at the termination of the cable.

Stiffener - Most FFCs have some sort of extra material attached on the opposite side of the exposed length of the cable to facilitate ZIF or LIF connections.

External links

• History of FFC
• FFC Connectors, FCi
• FFC Connectors, Kyocera-Elco
• FFC Connectors and Cables, Molex