Innovative Methods in Activation Process of Through-hole Plating

Abstract

This paper is dealing with an in-depth verification of innovated activation methods, where the phase of surface treatment involves solvent with oxides of carbon as the core chemistry. The overall impact of solvent on through-hole copper plating process was tested on target t structures involving standard FR-4 PCB substrate. The novelty of the approach proposed here is based on the effect of an unusual combination of vacuum and ultrasound waves in order to enhance quality of the activation process. The results undoubtedly demonstrated significant benefits of vacuum and vacuum/ultrasound combination on the decreasing number of defects, which normally occurred during the conventional plating process. In addition, there was also discovered that the resulting number of failures was increased even despite the use of ultrasound.