Electroplating conditions for rigid-flex boards

With the continuous development of PCBs and the diversification of application fields, the development direction towards lightweight, thin, short, and small PCBs has become the mainstream at present. At the same time, from the perspective of design structure, high integration, high-level, high-precision circuit levels, and high thickness to diameter ratios with smaller apertures have become the development direction of PCBs in the future.

Research on electroplating is constantly emerging, but there is almost no research on using software to design electroplating conditions, processes, and parameters; Industry researchers generally focus on the development of programmable automatic control, automatic addition control, and stability of chemical components in electroplating lines. Due to the differences in equipment types, service life, and maintenance methods among different manufacturers, it is impossible for industry researchers to develop a universal program. Therefore, based on the characteristics and process capabilities of the manufacturer, a set of automated program design suitable for a single manufacturer has been developed through data analysis. According to the characteristics of the printed circuit board itself and customer requirements, current conditions, electroplating production lines, and auxiliary thin copper processes have been designed at the design end; By reflecting the above designed information on the process card, production employees only need to follow the information on the process card for their work.

This article starts with the post process of electroplating influence - etching, and uses Minitab software to study the etching process capability; Collect copper plating thickness data for each electroplating line through simulation experiments, and calculate the electroplating efficiency of each electroplating line after data analysis; At the same time, through simulation experiments, grasp the different plate thickness aperture ratios and the deep plating ability of different minimum holes of each electroplating line. Based on the above data, the program was written using Visual Basic language. Finally, simulate sample production and collect electroplating and etching data for statistical analysis. The experimental results indicate that:
(1) The etching process capability is stable and can be included in the program database operation.
(2) The electroplating efficiency data has been confirmed to be consistent through sample validation and can be included in the database operation.
(3) Using Minitab software for data analysis and confirmation of certified samples, the electroplating conditions and associated processes derived from this program can achieve defect control within 1.5% of the etching process, meeting the requirements.

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