The two main benefits for medical applications are firstly, that the connector creates a seal which reduces the effects of body fluids on contact integrity and secondly that multiple wire contacts are made with the flex circuit pad which increases reliability.
Retaining features can also be added to improve mechanical integrity.
Blood Testing Devices
Z-Axis Connector Elements are utilized in surgical instruments, to test implants and in hand-held blood testing devices.
A pacemaker manufacturer uses a customized Z-Wrap connector to contact the shell of the device for final testing. The soft gold wires make the electrical connection without scratching the case and the multiple wire paths give the device longevity.
Hybrid Connector
A glucose monitoring device was demonstrated using a hybrid connector which allowed for connections to both LCD glass and I/O probes for a data recorder. The LCD glass connections are made with traditional carbon LCD connector materials and the data contacts were produced with gold-plated wire. The gold-plated wire is relatively expensive and is thus only used where necessary - the application demonstrates the ability of the zaxis technology to share power and data contacts on the same connector.