Abstract
AbstractPractical wearable e‐textiles must be durable and retain, as far as possible, the textile properties such as drape, feel, lightweight, breathability, and washability that make fabrics suitable for clothing. Early e‐textile garments were realized by inserting standard portable electronic devices into bespoke pockets and arranging interconnects and cabling across the garment. In these examples, the textile merely served as a vehicle to house the electronics and had no inherent electronic functionality. A reduction in electronic component size, the development of flexible circuits, and the ability to weave robust interconnects offer the potential for improved levels of electronic integration within the textile. The weaving of electronic circuit filaments less than 2 mm wide into fabrics such that the electronics are fully concealed in the textile and given extra protection by the surrounding textile fibers is introduced. The failure mechanisms for different filament circuit designs before and after integration into the textile are investigated with a 90° cyclical bending test. Results show that encapsulated filament circuits embedded within the textile survive 45 washing cycles and more than 1500 cycles of 90° bending around a bending radius of 10 mm, performing five times better than equivalent filament circuits before integration into the fabric.
Highlights
Introduction breathableThese properties make fabrics ideally suited for clothing but they make them a very challenging medium on, orE-textiles are textiles that incor- in, which electronic functionality must be incorporated.[3]
Mechanical reliability is an essential consideration for practical applications of wearable e-textile due to the need to survive bending and washing and this can be influenced by the properties of the substrate material.[44,45]
This paper described a technology that allows electronic circuits to be fully concealed and integrated within a fabric
Summary
Significant research has been undertaken in order to achieve the circuit resolution necessary for integrating bare die components. Techniques for handling and mounting the components, and design features have been investigated in order to maximize reliability
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