Analysis of Hot Bar Soldering, Insulation Displacement Connections (IDC), and Anisotropic Conductive Adhesives (ACA), for the Automated Production of Smart Textiles

Despite all the growth forecasts of the smart textiles market, there is no stable automated manufacturing process for attaching classic electronics to textiles. The great amount of manual production steps causes high prices, which slow down market growth. During the production process, the contacting step offers the greatest potential to reduce manual manufacturing steps. For this reason, we have analyzed various contacting methods for electronic parts on conductive yarns that have a high potential for automation. The chosen methods were thermode soldering, insulation–displacement connectors and anisotropic conductive adhesives. In order to ensure reliable mechanical contacting, the samples were tested in a peeling experiment. The examination of the contact resistances took place in the context of a resistance test using four-wire measuring technology.