WOVEN SIGNAL-ROUTING SUBSTRATE FOR WEARABLE ELECTRONIC DEVICES

摘要

A woven signal-routing substrate for a wearable electronic devoce has conductive warps and wefts that are woven with each other and with insulative warps and wefts. Woven electrical cross-connections are formed at some of the intersections of the conductive warps and wefts, while no electrical cross-connections are formed at other intersections, to provide a signal-routing architecture for the substrate that can be used to route signals between electronic components of the wearable device. Non-connecting intersections are formed using insulative warps that are sufficiently thicker than the relatively thin conductive warps to enable a conductive weft to cross a conductive warp without making physical contact at intersection locations where an electrical cross-connection is not desired. The woven electrical cross-connections may be formed at other intersection locations using weaving topologies that ensure that the corresponding mutually orthogonal warps and wefts do contact one another.

主权项

1. An article of manufacture comprising a woven layer, comprising:
a plurality of thick insulative warps interleaved with and substantially parallel to a plurality of thin conductive warps that are thinner than the thick insulative warps; a plurality of insulative wefts interleaved with and substantially parallel to a plurality of conductive wefts, wherein the warps are woven with the wefts; and one or more woven electrical cross-connections, each comprising at least one thin conductive warp physically contacting at least one conductive weft, wherein:
the relative thicknesses between the thick insulative warps and the thin conductive warps enable at least one thin conductive warp to cross at least one conductive weft without making physical contact at an intersection not having an electrical cross-connection.