Digitala Vetenskapliga Arkivet

Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Detailed Characterization of a Fully-Additive Covalent Bonded PCB Manufacturing Process (SBU-CBM Method)
Luleå University of Technology, Department of Computer Science, Electrical and Space Engineering, Embedded Internet Systems Lab. Department of Information Technology & Electrical Engineering, University of Oulu, 90570 Oulu, Finland.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-8774-9433
Department of Physics & Electrical Engineering, Linnæus University, 39231 Kalmar, Sweden.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-4409-0100
Luleå University of Technology, Department of Computer Science, Electrical and Space Engineering, Embedded Internet Systems Lab.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-6055-3198
Luleå University of Technology, Department of Computer Science, Electrical and Space Engineering, Embedded Internet Systems Lab.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-4133-3317
2022 (English)In: Processes, E-ISSN 2227-9717, Vol. 10, no 4, article id 636Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

To bridge the technology gap between IC-level and board-level fabrications, a fully additive selective metallization has already been demonstrated in the literature. In this article, the surface characterization of each step involved in the fabrication process is outlined with bulk metallization of the surface. This production technique has used polyurethane as epoxy resin and proprietary grafting chemistry to functionalize the surface with covalent bonds on an FR-4 base substrate. The surface was then metalized using an electroless copper (Cu) bath. This sequential growth of layers on top of each other using an actinic laser beam and palladium (Pd) ions to deposit Cu is analyzed. State-of-the-art material characterization techniques were employed to investigate process mechanism at the interfaces. Density functional theory calculations were performed to validate the experimental evidence of covalent bonding of the layers. This manufacturing approach is capable of adding metallic layers in a selective manner to the printed circuit boards at considerably lower temperatures. A complete analysis of the process using bulk deposition of the materials is illustrated in this work.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
MDPI, 2022. Vol. 10, no 4, article id 636
National Category
Manufacturing, Surface and Joining Technology
Research subject
Cyber-Physical Systems
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:ltu:diva-88607DOI: 10.3390/pr10040636ISI: 000785503200001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85127651811OAI: oai:DiVA.org:ltu-88607DiVA, id: diva2:1623589
Funder
Interreg Nord
Note

Validerad;2022;Nivå 2;2022-03-30 (sofila)

Available from: 2021-12-29 Created: 2021-12-29 Last updated: 2025-01-14Bibliographically approved
In thesis
1. An SBU fully additive production approach for Board-level Electronics Packaging (SBU-CBM Method)
Open this publication in new window or tab >>An SBU fully additive production approach for Board-level Electronics Packaging (SBU-CBM Method)
2021 (English)Licentiate thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

The worldwide electronics market is focusing on developing innovative technologies that can lead to denser, more resilient, and tighter board-level integration. The consumer electronics market is trending toward miniaturization, with HDI-PCBs dominating. Electronics shrinking and scaling technology is the prime concern of all manufacturers. The PCBA industry is transforming its production practices which can reduce the solder joints, limit the usage of discrete and bulky components, reduce the packaging factor of printed boards by accommodating the maximum number of ICs, minimize the assembly span, optimize the latency, and so on. However, developments in production processes in the PCB manufacturing industry need more attention than those in  Silicon-based (ICs) fabrications. One of the issues in PCB fabrication is utilizing conventional metallization approaches. The majority of manufacturers continue to use standard Copper(Cu) laminates on the base substrate and lithography methods to shape the structures.In recent manufacturing technologies, semi-Additive process (SAP) or modified-SAP (mSAP) methods are being adopted to replace traditional subtractive print-and-etch procedures. To scale down the Lines and Spaces (L\&S) on PCBs comparable to that of IC-level, most smartphone makers use Substrate-like PCB (SLP) using mSAP methods. However, subtractive patterning has been used in the intermediate stages of fabrication in those methods. This thesis demonstrates a fully additive selective metallization-based production approach to bridge this technology gap between IC-level and board-level fabrications. The fabrication process has given the name 'Sequential Build-Up Covalent Bonded Metallisation' (SBU-CBM) method.

This dissertation presents a new approach to Cu metallization using a significant step reducing-pattern-transfer process. The patterning method activates a seed layer of CBM polymer chains on a polymer surface with optimal UV-Laser settings. This surface modification enables a strong Copper (Cu) bonding onto the modified surface by Cu-plating. The suggested approach generated a 2.5D surface pattern using a micrometer via laser ablation and subsequent sub-micrometer laser lithography. Furthermore, the surface characterization of each step involved in the fabrication process is analysed and presented to show the sequential growth of layers on top of each other. To investigate the mechanism of the process at the interfaces, characterizations such as EDS, SEM, and XRD characterizations were performed. This PCB manufacturing method can selectively add metallic layers to the finest feature sizes at considerably lower temperatures. Overall, the thesis has addressed two critical aspects i.e. miniaturization of interconnects at board-level and the feasibility of a fully-additive production approach for electronics packaging.

First, a subtractive method is shown to achieve Copper interconnects with feature size 3.0$\mu$m. This miniaturization corresponds to 70\% reduction in the feature size from 20 $\mu$m to 3 $\mu$m. Next, the proposed additive production process has produced Cu interconnects with feature sizes of 2.5 $\mu$m L\&S and via of diameter 10 $\mu$m. The scaling of the interconnects was achieved by optimizing the process parameters involved in the proposed fabrication recipe.

Second, the sequential build-up (SBU) procedure is adopted to realize the embedded passives with the minimum possible feature size ($<$ 10 $\mu$m). An embedded capacitor and a planar inductor were fabricated. The proposed method can be employed to achieve any desirable pattern on FR-4, and a few of them are shown in the thesis. This additive technique can further be investigated through electrical and reliability assessment to make it an industrially accepted method.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Luleå University of Technology, 2021
National Category
Other Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering
Research subject
Cyber-Physical Systems
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:ltu:diva-88609 (URN)978-91-8048-001-7 (ISBN)978-91-8048-002-4 (ISBN)
Presentation
2022-02-25, E632, 10:00 (English)
Supervisors
Available from: 2021-12-30 Created: 2021-12-29 Last updated: 2022-02-10Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

fulltext(3378 kB)300 downloads
File information
File name FULLTEXT01.pdfFile size 3378 kBChecksum SHA-512
f153891dcbca4c11951e4a33fca1d0b86aaf0af1289ac2c52e7e5589eb8e63d99c1ef8289a189cca80ef1acd77220f8537664f2f59ec09020a2732846950d3a1
Type fulltextMimetype application/pdf

Other links

Publisher's full textScopus

Search in DiVA

By author/editor
Acharya, SarthakSattar, ShahidChouhan, Shailesh SinghDelsing, Jerker
By organisation
Embedded Internet Systems Lab
In the same journal
Processes
Manufacturing, Surface and Joining Technology

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar
Total: 306 downloads
The number of downloads is the sum of all downloads of full texts. It may include eg previous versions that are now no longer available

doi
urn-nbn

Altmetric score

doi
urn-nbn
Total: 308 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf