Depth of Laser Etching in Green State LTCC

Abstract

Laser etching of green state LTCC is a useful rapid prototyping and precision manufacturing process. Laser etching allows selective removal of screen printed conductor layer, producing patterns with higher precision than conventional screen printing. Its usefulness for rapid prototyping is due to elimination of time consuming screen preparation process. The etching is performed using a near UV (355 nm), pulsed laser. The process is characterized by three parameters: laser power, pulse frequency, and etching speed. From the practical standpoint, we are interested in finding a combination of parameters which allows for achieving required etching depth at the maximum etching speed. We present an empirical mathematical model relating etching depth to process parameters, allowing to theoretically determine optimum processing parameters for a specified etching depth.