Study on fine lines and undercut suppression of printed circuit board prepared by electrolytic etching

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to study an electrolytic etching method to prepare fine lines on printed circuit board (PCB). And the influence of organics on the side corrosion protection of PCB fine lines during electrolytic etching is studied in detail. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, the etching factor of PCB fine lines produced by new method and the traditional method was analyzed by the metallographic microscope. In addition, field emission scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were used to study the inhibition of undercut of the four organometallic corrosion inhibitors with 2,5-dimercapto-1,3,4-thiadiazole, benzotriazole, l-phenylalanine and l-tryptophan in the electrolytic etching process. Findings The SEM results show that corrosion inhibitors can greatly inhibit undercut of PCB fine lines during electrolytic etching process. XPS results indicate that N and S atoms on corrosion inhibitors can form covalent bonds with copper during electrolytic etching process, which can be adsorbed on sidewall of PCB fine lines to form a dense protective film, thereby inhibiting undercut of PCB fine lines. Quantum chemical calculations show that four corrosion inhibitor molecules tend to be parallel to copper surface and adsorb on copper surface in an optimal form. COMSOL Multiphysics simulation revealed that there is a significant difference in the amount of corrosion inhibitor adsorbed on sidewall of the fine line and the etching area. Originality/value As a clean production technology, electrolytic etching method has a good development indicator for the production of high-quality fine lines in PCB industry in the future. And it is of great significance in saving resources and reducing environmental pollution.

Optimization of PCB electronic component layout based on sequence pair representation

“…The layout of PCB electronic components is particularly important [1,2] . On the one hand, a reasonable component layout can reduce the loss and interference of the signal in the transmission process [3] , and improve the integrity and stability of the signal. Unreasonable layout may lead to signal reflection, crosstalk and other problems, affecting the quality and stability of the signal.…”