Embroidering Electrical Interconnects with Conductive Yarn for

The Integration of Flexible Electronic Modules into Fabric

Torsten Linz, Christine Kallmayer, Rolf Aschenbrenner, Herbert Reichl

Fraunhofer IZM
Gustav-Meyer-Allee 25
13355 Berlin, Germany
Email: Torsten.Linz@izm.fhg.de

Abstract in [1]. Temporary contacts and embroidered circuitry

with conductive yarn has been introduced in [2].
This paper shows how common embroidery can be Unlike earlier research [3] that concentrated on the
used to integrate electronics into textile environment in creation of conductive embroidery this work focuses
a light and cost efficient way. A mechanism has been on the interconnection process. Conductive yarn is
developed to embroider through flexible electronic embroidered through a metallized contact area on a
modules using conductive yarn, thus creating an flexible substrate and this way produces an electrical
interconnection with other modules like sensors, and mechanical connection (see figure 1).
batteries, textile keyboards, etc. Mold encapsulation Furthermore the role of the encapsulation for the
has been found to improve the electrical contact and connection mechanism and the reliability will be
support the reliability of the whole system. elaborated.
It remains to mention that such technologies will
also be useful for the integration of electronics into
1. Introduction non-wearable textiles like fabric for car interior,
textiles for packaging materials, carpets or medical
Until now, most wearable computers in the sense of textiles. In the end these may even be the bigger
real clothes exist only in laboratories. Great market markets.
success has been announced since many years.
However only a very few ideas really make it to the
market. So far no idea has become a mass market
product. MP3 player jackets for example are only
produced in small numbers.
The reason for this slow start of wearable
computing is the lack of real wearability of most
prototypes. Yet this is essential for a broad market
success. Technologies are required that will provide
electronically enhanced garments with a perceived
textile character rather than hardware character.
Therefore electronics must be miniaturized and
integration technologies must be applied that allow
textile typical treatment. Furthermore for successful
mass products these technologies must be realizable
with low cost processes.
In earlier papers the Fraunhofer IZM has shown
different approaches to such technologies. The Figure 1: Flexible electronic module connected with
integration into woven structures has been presented conductive yarn by embroidery.

Proceedings of the 2005 Ninth IEEE International Symposium on Wearable Computers (ISWC’05)
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 2. Interconnects with Embroidery
An electronic test substrate has been produced and a
test layout for an embroidered circuit has been
designed. The main purpose is to measure the
conductance of the textile interconnect under different
conditions and to test the contact durability. Beyond
this the durability of the flip chip and resistor assembly
can be investigated under stress as representatives for
various electronic components.
2.1. The Flexible Substrate
The flexible substrate consists of a 50µm polyamide
foil structured on both sides with 17µm copper, 5µm
nickel, flash gold and 15µm solder resist. The size of
the module is 25x25mm. Along three edges there are
in total 18 contact areas for the textile interconnect (see
figure 2). There are two types of contact areas: the
small pad with the drill hole 1mm from the edge and
the large pad with the hole 1.5mm from the edge.
Furthermore four different types of substrates have
been designed that are distinguished by their hole
sizes: TexFlex 1-1 Hole diameter 1.25mm
TexFlex 1-2 Hole diameter 1.00mm
TexFlex 1-3 Hole diameter 0.75mm
TexFlex 1-4 as TexFlex 1-1 but no holes
Figure 2: CAD design of embroidered circuit with
TexFlex substrate layout in the center. The marker
thread is embroidered first and serves as a
positioning frame for the electronic substrate. The
solder resist openings allow the embroidered statex
thread to come into contact with the metallization.
Proceedings of the 2005 Ninth IEEE International Symposium on Wearable Computers (ISWC’05)
0-7695-2419-2/05 $20.00 © 2005 IEEE
The size of the sewing needle is 0.9mm and therefore
will widen the 0.75mm hole and punch a hole where
there is none in version 1-4.
To identify solder or bump breaks during
production, wear or washing, 0Ω SMD resistors
(0201/0402) and two flip chips are mounted on the top
side. Flip chips and resistors are connected in daisy
chains. The 5x5mm flip chips have a pad pitch of
100µm and there are 176 pads in total on each chip.
Along the remaining fourth edge of the substrate
there are 56 four point measurement (4PM) probe pads
to measure the resistance of the flip chip daisy chains,
the 0Ω resistor chains and the contact pads which are
externally connected via conductive threads as shown
in figure 2.
For stability reasons the bottom side metallization
was chosen to be a 30% mesh (without metallization in
the area around the holes).
2.2. The Conductive Yarn
The herein described interconnection technology
sets two requirements for the conductive tread. It must
be conductive on the outside and must be machine
sewable. (Note: sewing and embroidery are essentially
the same thing.) From currently available products
only threads made from metal coated filaments satisfy
both these conditions. The experiments described here
have been carried out with silver-coated polyamide –
namely Statex 117/17 twine produced by Shildex. The
first number expresses the fineness of the thread or
more professionally expressed the yarn count and is
measured in dtex, i.e. 10'000m of a thread with
117dtex weighs 117g. 17 represents the number of
fibers in a thread – dealing with a twine means there
are 34 fibers in total. The resistance is around 500Ω/m,
which is terribly high. Nonetheless improved materials
can be expected soon.
2.3. Interconnection and Layout
All the test layouts were embroidered with a semi-
professional embroidery machine – Bernina artista 200
– which can be programmed with special CAD
software. To place the flex substrate correctly a marker
thread was embroidered first (fig. 3 left). After the
substrate has been placed, the conductive yarn was
embroidered through the contact pads (fig. 3 center
and left).
For some of the tests the interconnection was sewn
multiple times, where "single sewn" shall mean the
needle went through the hole once and "triple sewn"
shall mean the needle went three times through the
hole.
 By means of four point measurements, a theoretical
contact resistance could be determined. It is only a
"theoretical" value because the conductive thread in
this scenario is not only the contact material but also
the conductor. That means one must define where the
contact ends and where the conductor begins. For these
experiments, this point was defined to be on the edge
of the substrate.
For the reliability tests the contact pads have been
interconnected with embroidered loops. In between the
test cycles (e.g. wash cycles), lost contacts could be
detected via electrical measurements at the probe pads.
Figure 3: Embroidered marker (left); placing of the
flexible substrate along the marker (center);
flexible substrate interconnected with conductive
yarn that is embroidered through the contact pads
(right). [2]
3. Encapsulation
To protect the electronic components and their
interconnections as well as the embroidered
interconnects encapsulation is indispensable. In [1] a
glob top encapsulation has been developed for a single
chip module of a textile transponder. For the much
larger module in this work molding has been applied
(see figure 4).
Encapsulation by molding offers a more defined
geometry and better protection due to higher filler
content of the material. The molding process requires
that the fabric is very flat and neatly processed
otherwise mold compound may be pressed outside the
form. The curing temperature of typically 160°C-
185°C is well below the melting point of Statex (PA66
melts at 260°C). For this work, LOCTITE Hysol GR
9800 with a curing temperature of 165°C was applied.
To measure the resistances of the interconnections
and the daisy chains, it was necessary to leave the area
with the probe pads open. This is certainly not how it
would be done in a real package. Some failures that
have been found in the analysis of the reliability tests
are likely to have come from this opening at the side.
So in the real world application the package might
even perform better.
Proceedings of the 2005 Ninth IEEE International Symposium on Wearable Computers (ISWC’05)
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Figure 4: Flexible module from figure 1 molded on
jeans fabric.
4. Measurements Results
All electrical and reliability tests were carried out
with all four versions of the TexFlex both with and
without encapsulation. Each substrate has small and
large contact pads. The electrical measurements further
distinguish single sewn and triple sewn contacts while
the reliability tests were carried out with triple sewn
contacts only.
4.1 Electrical Measurements
The four point measurements have clearly revealed
that molding and multiple sewing of the contact are
most beneficial to the reduction of the theoretical
contact resistance. Furthermore, the large pads showed
a better contact conductance then the small pads (see
figure 5). The hole size had no measurable effect
concerning the contact, if the contacting was
successful (see reliability).
single sewn R[Ohm] triple sewn R[Ohm]
unmolded small pad 0,65 small pad 0,390
large pad 0,53 large pad 0,170
molded small pad 0,16 small pad 0,045
large pad 0,13 large pad 0,038
Figure 5: Contact resistance improves from top left
to bottom right.
The molding pushes the thread onto the substrate
and increases the number of filaments that touch the
substrate's metallization. Multiple sewing of the
contact has a similar effect as it makes the binding
tighter and the area of contact bigger.
 4.2 Reliability

Simulating the reality with stress tests is never

trivial, in particular when an application is new and
quite different from existing ones. For the embroidered
interconnects three tests have been chosen. 85%
humidity at +85°C and half-hourly temperature
changes from -55°C to +125°C are typical stress test
for electronics to simulate aging. Washing at 30°C is a
typical test for textiles. The percentage of
interconnection failures of molded packages after
1250h of humidity and shock testing are shown in
figure 6. At the time of the editing of this paper, only Figure 7: Conductive thread held by the gap
five wash cycles had been carried out. Until then no created by punching through the pad with the
single interconnect in the molded packages had failed, sewing needle.
therefore the failures of the less reliable unmolded
package are given as a hint which substrate will be the 5. Conclusions & Outlook
most reliable concerning washing.
It has been shown that embroidery is a means to
interconnect electronic modules on the basis of flex
foils. Encapsulation with molding not only brings
69%
reliability but also substantially improves the contact
70%
52% 41% 51% quality of the embroidered interconnects. Triple sewn
60%
56%
contact pads were more conductive than single sewn
Contact Failures in Percent

50% pads. Punching through the interconnection pad of the

40% 28% substrate with the embroidery needle has proven to be
33%
26% the most reliable interconnect.
30%
28%
This work has compared different designs and has
20%
21% 1.25mm worked out some design rules based on best contact
10% 1.00mm conductance and reliability during accelerated aging.
0% 11%
0.75mm The next question is how long would such an
Humidity 0% optimized system last in a real world application, like
No Hole
Test Shock Test an EKG T-shirt, a sensor carpet or a smart toy? What
(molded) (molded) Washing is the real time that was simulated in the accelerated
Test
(unmolded) tests within 1250h? To answer these questions, new
standards for reliability tests of electronics in textiles
Figure 6: Failure rates after 1250h of accelerated must be developed.
ageing through humidity or temperature cycles of
molded substrates or after 5 wash cycles of 6. References
unmolded substrates. Reliability tests clearly prefer
substrates without prepared hole. [1] Christine Kallmayer et al., "New Assembly Technologies
for Textile Transponder Systems", Electronic Components
The numbers are quite convincing that substrates and Technology Conference, New Orleans, May 2003.
without prepared hole are most durable. As the needle
punches the hole and pulls the thread through the hole, [2] Torsten Linz et al., “New Interconnection Technologies
for the Integration of Electronics on Textile Substrates”,
the substrate cracks and the thread is trapped in the gap
Ambience 2005, Tampere, September 2005.
(see figure 7).
Some of the predrilled holes lost contact in the [3] E.R. Post, M. Orth et al., “E-broidery: Design and
molding process because mold compound flowed fabrication of textile-based computing”, IBM Sytems
between the thread and the contact pad. Due to the Journal, IBM, 2000, Vol 39, pp. 840-860.
tighter binging, this did not occur at contact pads that [4] Oliver Lindner, "Entwicklung und Bewertung von
were punched with the needle. elektrisch leitenden Nähkontakten an flexiblen Substraten für
die Integration von Mikroelektronik in Textilien", Diploma
Thesis at FHTW Berlin and Fraunhofer IZM, July 2005

Proceedings of the 2005 Ninth IEEE International Symposium on Wearable Computers (ISWC’05)
0-7695-2419-2/05 $20.00 © 2005 IEEE