JPH04354B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Field of Industrial Application The present invention relates to a connector for micro-electrical connection that can be used for electrical connection of large-area panel display devices, etc. and for electrical connection of microelectrodes, and its manufacture. It is about the method.

Conventional Structures and Their Problems In recent years, elastic connectors having anisotropic conductivity and elasticity have been used for electrical connection from circuit boards to panel displays such as liquid crystal display devices.

However, conventionally used elastic connectors have several problems when put into actual use, and are expensive due to their manufacturing process. That is, a conventional micro-electrical connector having anisotropic conductivity is shown in FIGS. 1 to 3. First, FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a first conventional electrical connector, in which 1 is a conductive rubber material and 2 is an electrically insulating rubber material. It has a structure in which 2 layers are alternately stacked. However, in connectors with this structure, as the pitch between the upper and lower electrodes that require connection becomes smaller, it is necessary to increase the number of stacked layers of the connector, and at the same time, the area of the connected electrodes increases due to misalignment of the upper and lower electrodes due to twisting of the rubber. When the pitch of the electrode arrangement becomes small, it becomes difficult to ensure a stable electrical connection. As a second conventional example, FIG. 2 shows an example of an anisotropic conductive connector developed for the same purpose. As shown in the figure, in this conventional example, thin wires of a conductive rubber material 4 are embedded in an electrically insulating rubber material 3 so as to be lined up in one direction so as to avoid contact with each other. In this connector, the electrodes are arranged one above the other in a configuration as shown in FIG. 3 to connect the electrodes, and in the figure, 5 is the electrode and 6 is the connector. However, in an anisotropic conductive connector with such a configuration, the buried conductive thin wires are inevitably random in their mutual positional relationship, making it difficult to obtain a uniform connection between the upper and lower electrodes, and also because of the manufacturing process. There are problems in that it is difficult to make the connector too thick because mutual entanglement occurs.

Purpose of the Invention In view of the above-mentioned drawbacks, the present invention provides a micro-electrical connection that enables reliable and stable connection between electrodes even when the pitch of the electrodes for interconnection is small and many connections are required. A connector and a method for manufacturing the same are provided.

Structure of the Invention In the present invention, a mesh is embedded in an electrically insulating member, in which the electrically conductive thin wires are arranged in the vertical direction and the electrically insulating fibers are arranged in the horizontal direction. In this configuration, the vertical and horizontal directions are relative and have an opposite relationship, but with this configuration, the electrically conductive thin wires are supported by the electrically insulating fibers, so the spacing between adjacent wires is smaller than in the past. Electrical connection between the electrodes can be made reliably and stably.

In addition, the method for manufacturing a micro electrical connection connector of the present invention includes disposing a mesh made of electrically conductive thin wires and electrically insulating fibers between two electrically insulating sheets, and bonding the sheets together to form a laminate. It is characterized by being cut perpendicular to the longitudinal electrically conductive thin wire and perpendicular to the laminated surface.This allows for reliable and stable electrical connection between electrodes with small pitches between adjacent electrodes. And it can be produced stably.

DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention is shown in FIGS. 4 to 7. That is, FIG. 4 shows a cross-sectional view of a mesh material made of electrically conductive thin wires and electrically insulating fibers, and FIG. 5 is a perspective view of a micro electrical connection connector in which the mesh material is embedded in a rubber material. . As shown in these figures, the structure is such that electrically insulating fibers 7 are knitted as warp or weft threads, electrically conductive thin metal wires 8 are knitted as weft or warp threads, and are embedded in an electrically insulating rubber material 9.

The functions of the micro electrical connection connector configured in this way will be explained. First, a mesh material A consisting of electrically conductive thin metal wires 8 and electrically insulating fibers 7 is made by arranging the thin metal wires 8 as warp threads at equal intervals, and attaching the electrically insulating fibers 7 to the thin metal wires 8 for each warp.
It is generally produced in large quantities cheaply by a method similar to that used to create metal mesh for screen printing, or more generally to create woven cloth. . In the mesh material having such a structure, since the electrically insulating fibers 7 are passed through in the horizontal direction, electrical conduction in only one direction can be obtained by the electrically conductive thin metal wires 8 arranged in the vertical direction. Furthermore, the electrically conductive metal wires 8 that are threaded in the vertical direction are fixed by the electrically insulating fibers 7 that are threaded in the horizontal direction, so that the spacing between the electrically conductive metal wires 8 in the vertical direction is kept constant. It will be done. Therefore, even when embedding the mesh having the above-mentioned structure in the rubber material 9, there is no need to use any jig necessary to maintain the spacing between the thin metal wires, and the mesh material A is simply placed between the rubber sheets. By sandwiching and laminating and bonding, it is possible to obtain a structure in which thin electrically conductive metal wires 8 are embedded at equal intervals. In this example, a stainless steel wire was used as the electrically conductive thin metal wire 8 serving as the warp, and Tetron fiber was used as the electrically insulating fiber 7 serving as the weft. The resulting mesh was 400 meshes, and the pitch of the thin metal wires 8 was about 60 μm. Here, stainless steel wire has the characteristics of being strong and easy to weave as a mesh material compared to other metals. Mesh material A consisting of 400 meshes of stainless steel wire and Tetoron fibers is buried between sheets of silicone rubber to form a laminate, and this laminate is placed perpendicular to the direction in which the stainless steel wires are lined up and The sheet was cut perpendicular to the sheet surface, that is, the laminated surface of the sheets, and a belt-shaped section was cut out. this
It was placed between two printed circuit boards on which striped electrodes with a line spacing and line width of 100 μm were formed, and a slight pressure was applied from above and below, and then fixed. Here, the electrode used was gold plating on copper. In addition, in the fixed state, the electrode lines with a width of 100 μm on the top and bottom were precisely positioned at the top and bottom. Further, the stainless steel wire in the laminate was set to be perpendicular to the electrode surface. In this situation,
When we examined the electrical continuity between the upper and lower electrodes with a width of 100 μm, we found that the electrical continuity was complete and the resistance value was 2.
It was below Ω. Moreover, the electrical conduction of the striped electrodes was limited to the upper and lower electrodes, and no lateral electrical conduction was observed.

In addition, from the viewpoint of withstanding use under various environments as the thin metal wire 8 of the mesh material A, gold plating is used as another example of use, since the thin metal wire 8 may corrode and increase the contact resistance. A connector was created using the stainless steel wire. By doing this, it was confirmed that the film had sufficient moisture resistance in a 65°C, 95% humidity test.

In addition, in the above embodiment, stainless steel wire was used as the thin metal wire 8 and Tetron was used as the electrically insulating fiber, but the combination thereof is not limited to the case of the above embodiment, and an electrically conductive thin wire and an electrically insulating thin wire may be used. Any combination of these may be used as long as it has the function of electrical conductivity in different directions. for example,
Copper wire as electrically conductive thin wire 8, electrically insulating thin wire 7
It is like a mesh made of glass fiber is embedded in a rubber sheet.

Figure 6 shows a state in which a large number of mesh materials A as described above are embedded and cut perpendicular to the surface of the mesh material A and also perpendicular to the thin metal wire 8. A conductive connector can be easily made.

FIG. 7 is similar to FIG. 6, except that the cutting direction is not perpendicular to the thin metal wire or the plane of the mesh material A, but is cut along two parallel planes. In this case, the ends of the electrically conductive thin wires are not perpendicular to the surface but oblique.

Effects of the Invention As described above, according to the present invention, a mesh in which electrically conductive thin wires and electrically insulating fibers are knitted in a warp and weft manner is embedded in an insulating member such as a plastic material such as rubber. By using this method, it is possible to stably and reliably connect adjacent electrodes with a small pitch. In addition, since the mesh can be made in advance using the same manufacturing method as ordinary textiles, the manufacturing process for the connector is extremely simple, simply placing the mesh between two rubber sheets and laminating them. It is possible to create Furthermore, since the electrically conductive thin wires and the electrically insulating fibers are woven together, they are fixed to each other, and the spacing between the electrically conductive thin wires will not collapse even if special care is not taken. Therefore, the spacing between the thin wires can be maintained with extremely high precision, making it suitable for use as a connector. The accuracy of the fine line spacing of actual knitted mesh is within ±10%. Furthermore, the electrical connector of the present invention can be widely applied not only to connectors but also to devices in which thin wires are regularly arranged in an insulating material, such as heads for electrostatic printers.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Figure 1 is a perspective view of a conventional anisotropic conductive connector in which insulating layers and conductive layers are laminated alternately, and Figure 2 is a perspective view of a conventional anisotropic conductive connector in which thin metal wires are lined up in one direction and buried in an insulating rubber member so as not to touch each other. A perspective view of a conventional example of
Fig. 3 is a sectional view showing the actual state of these connectors in use. Fig. 4 is a sectional view of the mesh material used in the connector of one embodiment of the present invention. A perspective view of the buried state, and FIGS. 6 and 7 are perspective views of a state in which a large number of meshes are embedded and cut. 7... Electrically insulating fiber, 8... Electrically conductive thin metal wire, 9... Electrically insulating rubber member (electrically insulating member).

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1 An electrically insulating member, and electrically conductive thin wires in the vertical direction and electrically insulating fibers in the horizontal direction are knitted embedded in the electrically insulating member, and the end portions of the electrically conductive thin wires are knitted. A micro electrical connection connector comprising a mesh exposed at the edge of the electrical insulating member. 2. The micro electrical connection connector according to claim 1, wherein the electrically conductive thin wire is a stainless steel wire. 3. The micro electrical connection connector according to claim 2, wherein the stainless steel wire is gold plated. 4. A laminate forming step of forming a laminate by adhering a mesh formed by knitting electrically conductive thin wires in the vertical direction and electrically insulating fibers in the horizontal direction between two electrically insulating sheets, and forming a laminate; A method for manufacturing a connector for micro-electrical connection, comprising a cutting step of cutting the laminate perpendicular to the longitudinal direction of the electrically conductive thin wires and perpendicular to the laminated surface of the laminate.