P-Flex™ is a Flexible PCB manufactured by printing silver nano ink onto heat-resistant PET using an inkjet printer and forming electroless copper plating on top using a technology called the Pure Additive™ method which overlays copper plating over printed silver circuits.

Conventional electronic circuits have been made by a manufacturing method called photolithography in which metal is affixed to the whole surface before unnecessary parts are melted away. The Pure Additive™ method developed by Elephantech is a concept completely opposite to what had been used until now, using a proprietary manufacturing technology that prints metal nanoparticles with inkjet only on the necessary parts and grows metals by electroless plating technology.

As a result, the “plate” required by the conventional manufacturing method became unnecessary, lessening material and process related needs and greatly reducing costs as well as shortening the delivery date considerably. It is expected to be used for small lot productions and trial production processes of various kinds.

Zero mold fees / cost reductions

The cost of building a new substrate had been in excess of 100,000 yen, but with the Pure Additive™ method there are no mold related costs as the manufacturing method uses an inkjet printer to print the metal patterns and the solder resist.

Also, when compared to the conventional method of taking away the unnecessary parts, the proprietary manufacturing method called the Pure Additive™ method, which only layers metal on the necessary parts, reduces material costs and, for small volume productions, can cut costs by between 1/2 and 1/5. There are cost related merits for larger productions too from material related savings.

Reduction of lead time / quicker delivery

By producing with the Pure Additive™ method, we were able to halven the manufacturing process for flexible substrates as compared to the previous method and speed up production to achieve the shortest ever delivery time.

Reduce man-hours for mold storage and asset management

You can combine all drwaings into one sheet by designing the harness and the substrate as a single body. Also, the reduction of components such as connectors will not only reduce management and procurement costs but also reduce the causes for faults and miswiring, thus improving reliability.

The design can be modified at all times

As the patterning is done by a completely mold-less nano metal printer, the patterns of the production line can be modified instantly by modifying the data sent to the printer. Even once production has begun, you can modify the drwaings at any time and any number of times, allowing for a truly flexible production system.

It is a technology that supports the global trend of job shop and on-demand types of production.

An environment-friendly substrate

The Pure Additive™ method allows for an environment-friendly substrate with less than 1/10 of liquid waste. This is why this is the next-generation flexible substrate that can be manufactured even in Tokyo’s Chuo Ward.