Multilayer board processing Copper foil

There has been a continual increase in size and complexity of PCBs with a concurrent reduction in conductor and hole dimensions. Conductors can be less than 250 p.m wide some boards have conductors less than 75 pm wide. Multilayer boards greater than 2.5 mm thick having hole sizes less than 250 pm are being produced. This trend may, however, eventually cause the demise of the subtractive process. It is difficult to etch such fine lines using 35-pm copper foils, though foils as thin as 5 pm are now available. It is also difficult to electroplate holes having high aspect ratio. These factors may shift production to the semiadditive or fully additive processes. 

TLCPs have many outstanding properties that uniquely qualify them for these high performance multilayer boards (12). Table 7 compares the applicability of LCPs with other state-of-the-art materials for electronic packaging. They can be made into very thin, self-supporting films (<50 J.m) with a controllable CTE. By processing LCP films as described above, circuit substrates can be manufactured with a CTE around 7 ppm/°C and thermal stability over 250°C. TLCPs do not require secondary resins for fabrication into MLBs, they can be thermally bonded to themselves and to copper foil. Control of molecular orientation has been shown to result in a substrate with the desired CTE of 6 to 7 ppm/°C for matching alumina, or 16 ppm/°C for matching copper. 

To facilitate the many choices of laminates and their associated properties, industry standards groups such as the IPC have defined minimum performance specifications and have issued several specifications to inform the selection process. Some of the most commonly used material specifications are those that deal with laminate,prepreg, and copper foil. IPC lOl, Specification for Base Materials for Rigid and Multilayer Printed Boards, and IPC-4652, Metal Foil for Printed Wiring Applications, are the primary specifications for clad laminates, prepregs, and foils. Another specification, IPC- 4104, Specification for High Density Interconnect (HDI) and Microvia Materials, deals with many of the new materials for HDI, such as epoxy-coated microfoils, as discussed in this chapter. 

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