Selective plating of printed circuit boards
AssigneeHoneywell Advanced Circuits, Inc.
InventorKeith G. Kitchens
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An improved plating method in which non-plated vias or through holes are temporarily metalized for use as busses during selective noble metal plating and subsequently de-metalized to prevent shorting together of the nobly plated features.
Claims14
A multi-layered semiconductor device comprising at least two features, each feature being electroplated with a noble metal, and each electroplated feature being coupled to one of at least two conductors embedded within the mutli-layered semiconductor device, wherein the at least two conductors are electrically isolated from each other and intersect a common non-plated via or through hole.
A method of plating comprising:
- providing a device having a plurality of features to be selectively plated wherein each of the plurality of features to be selectively plated is electrically coupled to a metalized via or through hole;
- selectively plating the plurality of features to be plated;
- converting the metalized via or through hole to a non-metalized via or through hole.
A method of selectively plating features of a printed wiring board (PWB) formed in accordance with a PWB design, the PWB having at least one portion adapted to be coupled to a current source during electroplating, the method comprising:
- using the PWB design to identify features of the PWB which are to be selectively plated, but which will be electrically isolated from the at least one portion of the PWB adapted to be coupled to a current source during electroplating;
- using the PWB design to identify non-plated through holes which will be used as temporary busses during plating;
- modifying the PWB design by adding conductors that will electrically connect the identified features to be plated with the temporary busses;
- providing a PWB that at least partially corresponds to the PWB design by including the identified features, identified through holes, and added conductors;
- forming the temporary busses out of the identified through holes;
- selectively plating the identified features;
- and
- electrically isolating at least some of the added conductors from each other after selective plating is complete.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.