Design of Metal Interconnects for Stretchable Electronic Circuits using Finite Element Analysis

In this work, the design of flexible and stretchable interconnections is presented. These interconnections are done by embedding sinuous electroplated metallic wires in a stretchable substrate material. A silicone material was chosen as substrate because of its low stiffness and high elongation before break. Common metal conductors used in the electronic industry have very limited elastic ranges; therefore a metallization design is crucial to allow stretchability of the conductors going up to 100%. Different configurations were simulated and compared among them and based on these results, a horseshoe like shape was suggested. This design allows a large deformation with the minimum stress concentration. Moreover, the damage in the metal is significantly reduced by applying narrow metallization schemes. In this way, each conductor track has been split in four parallel lines of 15 mum and 15 mum space in order to improve the mechanical performance without limiting the electrical characteristics. Compared with the single copper or gold trace, the calculated stress was reduced up to 10 times.