As the update iteration of electronic products is getting faster and faster, and they are constantly developing in the direction of high density, miniaturization, and high reliability, in order to save assembly space and reduce costs, related accessories are also constantly being upgraded, such as the two products FFC and FPC shown in the figure below. Widely used in our living electrical equipment.
Both of them are flat and can be bent at will, so do these two similar products belong to the same category? Can it be classified under the same heading?
FFC
FFC – Flexible Flat Cable, also known as flat wire.
Structure: PET insulation material, flat copper wire
Processing technology: the upper and lower layers of insulating film are sandwiched between flat copper foil and pressed together.
From the picture above, we can see that the FFC structure is very simple. The outer layer is an insulating layer, and the inner layer is composed of multiple strands of copper foil arranged in a wide and flat combination.
Does this structure look familiar? If the flat strip is rolled up, the copper foil becomes a copper wire. Is it the wire structure in which the outer layer is an insulator and the inner layer is a copper wire? Moreover, the use of FFC is used as a conductor to connect lines. From this, we can deduce that FFC is a deformation of cables, so this product is classified under item 85.44 from the perspective of classification.
FPC
FPC – flexible print circuit, also known as flexible printed circuit board, flexible circuit board.
Structure: composed of flexible copper foil, insulating material, adhesive and film, is a flexible insulating substrate Printed circuits made of materials (PI, PET, etc.).
The processing technology of FPC is to use the chemical etching process to process FCCL (flexible copper clad foil) to obtain flexible circuit boards with different single-sided, double-sided and multi-layer structures.
According to the heading note to heading 85.34 Printed circuits “This heading includes the printing of conductors, contacts or other printed components (for example, inductors, Resistors, capacitors and other “passive components”) are printed on an insulating substrate to form a circuit”, the chemical etching process is included in this provision and does not go beyond the scope, so FPC without any active components is classified under item 85.34.
