Industry Webinar

Rethinking ZIF Connectors: What Today’s FFC/FPC Solutions Can Actually Do

Jorge Jimenez Hirose Electric Americas Senior Marketing Program Specialist

ABOUT

Jorge Jimenez, Senior Marketing Program Specialist at Hirose, leads South American activities and brings years of engineering expertise to bridge technical innovation with strategic marketing initiatives.

Jason Michaud V.P. of Sales and Marketing, Miraco Inc.

ABOUT

Jason Michaud is Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Miraco Inc., where he oversees coordination between manufacturing operations in the United States and Mexico. With more than 20 years at Miraco, he brings expertise spanning sales engineering, operations, and materials management, with a focus on FFC/FPC cable manufacturing and interconnect system design.

Kerrick Klancnik Sr Field Application Engineer, Hirose

ABOUT

Kerrick Klancnik is a Senior Field Application Engineer at Hirose, supporting customers across the southeastern United States. He holds a B.S. in Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and serves as the primary technical point of contact, with expertise across automotive, industrial, and complex electronic systems.

Liam Mckenzie Field Application Engineer, Hirose

ABOUT

Liam McKenzie is a Field Application Engineer at Hirose, supporting industrial and medical customers across New England. He holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and works closely with major industrial and medical companies on connector selection and application support.

Niral Rathod Field Application Engineer, Hirose

ABOUT

Niral Rathod is a Sales Engineer at Hirose Electric Americas, working across industrial, medical, automotive, and consumer markets. He holds a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Northern Illinois University and brings hands-on experience supporting technical evaluation, design decisions, and application-specific interconnect solutions.

Rethinking ZIF Connectors: What Today’s FFC/FPC Solutions Can Actually Do

This technical session examines the most common misconceptions—fragile actuators, weak retention, assembly challenges, cable tolerances, and performance limitations—and explains how modern ZIF connectors address them.

In partnership with Hirose Electric

ZIF (FFC/FPC) connectors have changed significantly from the early designs many engineers remember. This technical session examines the most common misconceptions—fragile actuators, weak retention, assembly challenges, cable tolerances, and performance limitations—and explains how modern ZIF connectors address them.

We’ll compare historical vs. current designs, review real manufacturing considerations, and highlight where today’s ZIF connectors reliably support industrial, medical, and automotive systems.

Ideal for engineers evaluating ZIF for new designs or revisiting it after past issues.