Editorial

Citation

Goosey, M. (2010), "Editorial", Circuit World, Vol. 36 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/cw.2010.21736caa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Circuit World, Volume 36, Issue 3

Welcome to the third issue of Circuit World, Volume 36. The papers included report on a broad range of topics related to printed circuit board fabrication and testing. They cover subjects ranging from investigations of new routes for producing plated through holes and a review of the equipment technologies available for a wide range of PCB chemical processes, to novel work on drills and drilling and an assessment of a new technique for making loss measurements in a production environment.

The first paper details research by Edith Steinhäuser, a PhD student working for Atotech in Berlin, and it covers an assessment of potential low-cost alternatives to palladium for activating electroless copper deposition. The results of this study suggest that improvements in electroless copper plating may be possible with an alternative activation procedure. The catalytic activity of copper, silver and even nickel with certain novel reducing agents means that they may be potential catalysts for electroless copper plating.

A.J. Cobley, D.J. Comeskey, L. Paniwnyk and T.J. Mason at Coventry University then publish the results of a recent feasibility study into the use of copper nanoparticles with ultrasonics as an alternative to the conventional palladium catalyzed electroless copper deposition process. The results indicate that copper nanoparticles can be used as a catalytic material for electroless copper plating. The coverage of the electroless copper in the through holes was improved as the copper nanoparticle concentration was increased and dispersion of the copper nanoparticles using ultrasound was critical to the process. Although these were the results of an initial study, the results do seem to suggest that, with further development and optimisation, this approach might one day offer a potential alternative to conventional electroless copper and direct plate processes.

Of course, while the various plating and related chemical treatment chemistries used to process printed circuit boards are highly important, they are only really useful if they can be successfully operated in production scale equipment. Over the years, there have been many significant developments in the equipment used to process increasingly fine featured printed circuits with very small holes and microvias. In the third paper of this issue, Happy Holden gives a review of the key PCB process mechanization developments that are such an integral part of modern high-speed rigid and flexible PCB manufacturing equipment and, in particular, he focuses on some of the newer conveyorized electroplating concepts.

A few years ago it seemed that laser drilling was set to become the preferred technology for an ever increasing proportion of the growing number of small holes and microvias produced. However, and even though laser drilling offers high efficiency for small hole formation processes, mechanical drilling still gives very attractive technology advantages in terms of hole quality and processing capabilities for through holes. In a paper on drill bits for packaging substrates, Lianyu Fu and Qiang Guo highlight the key considerations when developing ultra-small micro drill bits.

Finally, for this issue, the paper by Paul Carre of Polar Instruments details some of the requirements for an industrial strength loss measurement technique that is suitable for FR4 laminate-based PCBs. In particular, the paper takes a closer look at one new candidate, the new “SET2DIL” method, proposed by Loyer and Kunze of Intel for characterizing loss and it compares the results with established laboratory methods. The results indicate that the “SET2DIL” method is indeed suitable for use in high volume production environments.

I hope you enjoy reading these papers and the other content of this issue. As always, I welcome your comments and suggestions and can be contacted at: m.goosey@lboro.ac.uk

Martin Goosey