Pulse Laser Irradiation Control Method for Blind Via-Hole Drilling of Printed Wiring Boards Based on High-Speed Camera Monitoring

Abstract

In recent years, the performance and miniaturization of portable information devices have rapidly advanced. The build-up process is often used in the manufacturing of printed wiring boards (PWBs) for high-density circuits. At present, CO2 laser beams are generally used in the build-up process to drill blind via holes (BVHs) that connect copper foils. However, Cu direct drilling is problematic in that it produces a copper overhang as a result of copper and resin, with different decomposition points, being melted simultaneously. Overhang could cause an adverse effect in plating the hole for connectivity. However, only few studies have investigated Cu direct processing for drilling BVHs. At an actual production site of PWBs, the number of processing holes is enormous, which leads to neglecting the quality of each processed hole. Therefore, we focused on pulse drilling, which involves laser irradiation using short multiple pulses to reduce the thermal effect. Pulse drilling could reduce overhang compared to single pulse irradiation; however, it lengthens the total processing time. Pulse irradiation after BVH formation would be unnecessary, since it could cause thermal damage to the hole and lengthen the processing time. Therefore, during pulse irradiation, it is essential to distinguish whether a BVH is formed. We observed the value of the motion graph, which was acquired from the high-speed camera images. The motion graph shows the luminance value of an image at a given time of the video. Based on the peak time of the motion graph during each pulse, we proposed a method to distinguish BVH formation during multiple pulse drilling.