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D1.9.1

Development of Woven Fabric-based Electrical Circuits Anuj Dhawan, Tushar K. Ghosh, Abdelfattah M. Seyam, and John Muth1 College of Textiles, NC State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, U.S.A. 1 College of Electrical Engineering, NC State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, U.S.A ABSTRACT This paper describes the development of woven electrical circuits, which are formed by interlacing conducting and non-conducting threads into a woven fabric. Conductive threads in these electrical networks are arranged and woven such that they follow desired electrical circuit designs. Electronic devices can be attached to these electrical networks, which can serve as flexible circuit boards. In these woven circuits, an efficient transfer of current from one conductive yarn to an orthogonal one is achieved by the formation of an effective electrical interconnect at the point of intersection of these yarns. Formation of woven conductive networks also involves disconnect formation or cutting of conductive yarns at certain specified points. Different methods and processes were identified and applied in order to form interconnects and disconnects at specified points of these fabrics. Efficacy of these interconnects was evaluated by DC resistance and AC Signal measurements. The results of these evaluations are reported. The conductive threads woven into these fabric-based circuits were also evaluated for signal integrity issues. INTRODUCTION Woven fabric structures offer numerous opportunities to be used as a platform to incorporate electronic devices due to their structural order, low flexural rigidity and their ability to conform to almost any desired shape. Using today’s technologies, intricate woven fabric structures can be manufactured continuously at high speed with low production costs. Some work has been done previously on the integration of conductive elements and electronic devices into textiles [1-6]. These textile-based electrical circuits and devices could be used in the fields of medicine, communications, electronics, automobiles, space exploration, and several military applications The creation of woven electrical circuits or circuit boards not only requires the formation of interconnects at different crossover points but also disconnects at predetermined locations along a conducting yarn [1] so as to control the current path in the circuitry. This is a shown schematically in Figure 1 where several chips need to be connected via a fabric. In this paper we focus on the formation of interconnects and disconnects made by resistive welding after conductors have been woven into a fabric. Signal integrity issues in fabric-based woven circuits are also important. When conductive thread elements (which can be modeled as transmission lines) are placed parallel to each other in these woven circuits, it can lead to capacitive and inductive signal crosstalk between the neighboring lines and examples of this are also presented.

D1.9.2

Figure 1. Schematic of a woven electrical network having crossover point interconnects and disconne