Tetsuji Shibata

Pretreatment of blind via holes before ni/au and cu plating applied with atmospheric pressure plasma jet

The effectiveness of atmospheric pressure (AP) plasma preprocessing before Ni/Au or Cu plating has been examined by applying it to a build-up printed circuit board (FR-4 grade) and polyimide-based flexible circuit film, both with blind via-holes (BVHs). The AP plasma applied with a dielectric barrier discharge is generated inside a 56 mm wide quartz vessel by an RF power generator using Ar-O2 gas mixture. One side of the vessel is open and the plasma jet is blown on the sample substrate transported 5 mm downward from the outlet of the vessel. The deposit failure rate of Ni/Au electroless deposit to 50 μm-diameter BVHs formed on a photo resist on the printed circuit board is 12.5% without preprocessing but is decreased to 0% after applying the AP plasma processing. As for 50 μm-diameter BVHs formed with a YAG laser on a polyimide-based flexible circuit film, the bump formation using electrolytic copper plating fails without preprocessing, but a 100% bump formation rate is achieved after applying AP plasma ...