Investigation of laser via formation technology for the manufacturing of high density substrates

Fabrication of micro-vias is one of the critical processes in manufacturing high-density printed circuit boards. The conventional mechanical drilling technique becomes expensive for vias smaller than 200 mum in diameter due to the frequent breakage of the drill bits and machine downtime. The inability to produce blind vias renders the mechanical drilling method of limited use in providing vertical interconnections needed for multi-layer boards. Laser microdrilling has emerged as one of the most feasible technologies for forming micro-vias. It offers greater resolution over the mechanical technique and is capable of producing vias well below 70 mum, consistently. The feasibility of being able to laser drill depends on the laser characteristics such as wavelength, energy density and pulse shape of the laser beam on the one hand, and on the type, structure configuration and thickness of the PCB substrate on the other hand. As most of the PCB materials have finite absorption characteristics with respect to the laser wavelength, only certain laser types are compatible with the common substrate materials. Laser via-drilling can either be a serial process with one via drilled at a time, or a mask imaging process with many vias drilled simultaneously. In this paper, the issues involved in the laser micro-drilling of PCB vias, including beam characteristics and processing mechanisms, for different substrates are investigated. A brief comparison with the other two emerging technologies, i.e. photo-vias and plasma etching is also discussed. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.