I love the idea of FPCs, but I have a hard time understanding the practical applications.<p>Even the Wikipedia entry[1] seems to list examples, most of which don't entirely rely on the flexibility of the device. I can understand the need for space savings, but that seems to be achievable for most of these applications without the flexible component.<p>For most wearables I've seen (clothing or devices worn directly on the body), FPCs don't seem to solve anything - you still have some bulky components, and the truly flexible parts need to be handled with extra care so as not to damage connections. I mean, clothing with built-in fitness monitoring (or GPS or whatever) sounds cool, but current implementations really seem to miss the practicality ("how am I supposed to wash this again?") of truly "invisible" technology.<p>Can someone point me to some better practical applications?<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexible_electronics#Applications" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexible_electronics#Applicati...</a>
<i>This technology was unavailable to the public - until now!</i><p>FPCs have been around for <i>many</i> decades:<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexible_electronics#History" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexible_electronics#History</a><p>I'm somewhat surprised that they didn't go for bare die versions of ICs like the MCU, since COF is another quite-established technology for cheap flexible electronics.