Current carrying capacity of PCB traces on PLA/Flax biodegradable substrates

In this study, the thermal behaviour of copper traces on PLA/Flax (polylactic acid with flax textile reinforcement) composite-based biodegradable printed circuit board (PCB) substrates were examined. The goal of the study was to investigate the applicability of the calculations based on the IPC2152 standard on the sustainable substrates. To examine the adoption of the standard, we prepared test panels with traces of stepwise width increase (8-40 mil) on both the PLA/Flax and reference FR4 substrates. We measured the temperature change as a result of driving pre-specified levels of current through the traces. From the collected data we can illustrate the differences and similarities compared to widely used PCB substrates, such as the traditional FR4 or polyimide. It was found that the obtained results of PLA/Flax substrates show similar performance to traditional substrates.