Printed wiring boards with solder mask over bare copper wires having large area thickened circuit pad connections

The method of manufacturing printed circuit boards comprising the steps of:

• covering conductor traces on a printed circuit board substrate with a solder mask insulating layer having a flat outer surface to leave exposed those areas to be circuit interconnections,
• placing a very thin layer of copper over the solder mask and exposed areas,
• covering the flat solder mask surface with the copper layer thereon thereover with an insulation layer, and
• electroplating additional copper onto the exposed copper circuit connection areas wherein the insulating layer covering the copper layer together with the copper layer are mechanically removed after the electroplating step.

The method of improving reliability of connector sites at land areas on printed wiring boards having conductor layer traces with circuit thereon adhered to an insulation board substrate, comprising the steps of:

• placing an insulation layer of a thickness of at least 0.002 in. (0.005 cm) selectively over part of the traces and leaving exposed land areas of said conductor traces to be metallized and adjacent insulation surface area on the insulation layer adjacent the land areas, and
• metallizing the exposed land areas together with said adjacent insulation surface area wherein the insulation layer is metallized on sidewalls surrounding the exposed land area, thereby increasing the metallized surface area beyond the bounds of the exposed land areas wherein the insulation layer placed over the conductor traces comprises a photopolymer with a high gloss outermost surface, further including the steps of metallizing the gloss surface and the exposed land areas with a thin metallic layer by chemical deposition, placing a resist layer over the metallized high gloss surface with the exposed land areas remaining exposed, electroplating a metal onto the metallic layer in the exposed land area using the metallic layer as a conductor therefor to increase the thickness of the metal of the land connector sites, and removing the resist layer and thin metallic layer from the high gloss surface.