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Murata’s Revolutionary Stretchable Printed Circuit Elevates Wearable Medical Devices Printed Circuit Products
October 31, 2024 | MurataEstimated reading time: 2 minutes
Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd reveals an innovative new Stretchable Printed Circuit (SPC) technology marking a significant development in printed circuit technology. Murata's SPC represents the next advancement in substrate development, providing both flexibility and the capability to stretch and deform while maintaining full functionality. It is perfect for creating advanced medical products, like wearable therapeutic devices and vital monitoring tools, that can provide better accuracy, durability, and patient comfort than today’s equivalent devices.
In recent years, in the medical field, to make more accurate diagnoses, the importance of sophisticated tests performed in hospitals and biometric information collected continuously in daily life has increased. Daily vital sign monitoring is important to prevent lifestyle-related diseases, therefore wearable medical devices are now ubiquitous. However, existing devices are often too stiff for many applications, creating issues like patient discomfort, poor surface contact, or unstable data acquisition. Murata's SPC excels in its inherent flexibility, stretchability, and ability to adapt, supporting multi-sensing functionalities to address diverse user requirements. The material is incredibly soft and gentle on the skin, making it ideal for medical and wellness devices like EEG (Electroencephalogram), EMG (Electromyogram), and ECG(Electrocardiogram). Its stretchable nature can enable a single device to accommodate various body areas and patients of different sizes, as well as allowing more easily for continuous monitoring applications or monitoring in previously challenging areas such as elbows or knee joints.
Engineered with cutting-edge capabilities, including printing stretchable electrodes compliant with ANSI/AAMI EC12 standards, SPC paves the way for next-generation medical devices. It achieves seamless integration and optimal performance through innovative telescopic component mounting and hybrid bonding technology between substrates. By effectively blocking electromagnetic noise, the unique shield layer offers reliable protection for the signal path. Additionally, the substrate construction demonstrates excellent reliability, with high resistance to moisture and the ability to withstand high voltages for long durations, while allowing for more flexibility in component mounting, giving designers more freedom to innovate.
Murata's SPC can be tailored to meet individual customer specifications with the help of Murata’s extensive range of resources to facilitate collaborative product development. This can be harnessed by product designers, enabling them to optimize their designs. Murata can further support development by conducting tests in various conditions and resolving failure modes by identifying their root causes. Depending on the required specifications, filters, amplifiers, and multiple sensors can be mounted on a single sheet, enabling accurate data acquisition and sensing of several items. With this solution, Murata performs custom design, prototyping and verification, and mass production based on the required specifications.
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Brent Fischthal - Koh YoungSuggested Items
Beyond Design: Slaying Signal Integrity Villains
09/17/2025 | Barry Olney -- Column: Beyond DesignHigh-speed PCB design is a balancing act, where subtle oversights can develop into major signal integrity nightmares. Some culprits lie dormant during early validation, only to reveal themselves later through workflow disruptions and elusive performance bottlenecks. Take crosstalk, for example. What begins as a stray signal coupling between traces can ripple through the design, ultimately destabilizing the power distribution network. Each of these troublemakers operates with signature tactics, but they also have well-known vulnerabilities.
Curing and Verification in PCB Shadow Areas
09/17/2025 | Doug Katze, DymaxDesign engineers know a simple truth that often complicates electronics manufacturing: Light doesn’t go around corners. In densely populated PCBs, adhesives and coatings often fail to fully cure in shadowed regions created by tall ICs, connectors, relays, and tight housings.
Knocking Down the Bone Pile: Best Practices for Electronic Component Salvaging
09/17/2025 | Nash Bell -- Column: Knocking Down the Bone PileElectronic component salvaging is the practice of recovering high-value devices from PCBs taken from obsolete or superseded electronic products. These components can be reused in new assemblies, reducing dependence on newly purchased parts that may be costly or subject to long lead times.
On the Line With… Podcast: UHDI and RF Performance
09/17/2025 | I-Connect007I-Connect007 is excited to announce the release of a new episode in its latest On the Line with... podcast series, which shines a spotlight on one of the most important emerging innovations in electronics manufacturing: Ultra-High-Density Interconnect (UHDI).
American Standard Circuits to Exhibit and Host Lunch & Learn at PCB West 2025
09/17/2025 | American Standard CircuitsAnaya Vardya, President, and CEO of American Standard Circuits/ASC Sunstone Circuits has announced that his company will once again be exhibiting at PCB West 2025 to be held at the Santa Clara Convention Center on Wednesday, October 1, 2025.