Patent ID: 7728233

Claim:
A curved flexible substrate having solder lands on opposing lengthwise edge portions, said flexible substrate extending from a base end connected to an optical component in an optical pickup for optically processing a disk and having a plurality of parallel circuit patterns arranged thereon; wherein the solder lands on the opposing lengthwise edge portions of the flexible substrate are connected by soldering, respectively, to two spaced-apart solder lands on a counterpart substrate; wherein said flexible substrate is divided into two branching pieces by an incision or a slit formed between adjacent circuit patterns and extending in parallel with said circuit patterns, from an intermediate position spaced from said base end to a leading end of said flexible substrate; wherein, with respect to the curve of said flexible substrate, said two branching pieces are a radially outer longer branching piece and a radially inner shorter branching piece; wherein an overlapping inner lengthwise edge portion of said longer branching piece overlaps an outer lengthwise edge portion of said shorter branching piece but does cover the solder lands on said shorter branching piece; and wherein the overlap between said two branching pieces provides a spacing between said solder lands on one of said lengthwise edge portions and said solder lands on the other lengthwise edge portion equal to a spacing between said two spaced-apart solder lands on said counterpart substrate.