Fabrication of printed circuit boards using conducting polymer
AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorsMarie Angelopoulos, Wu-Song Huang, Jae M. Park, James R. White
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Abstract
A process for fabricating a printed circuit board concerns the use of a soluble, air-stable conducting polymer applied to plated through holes, blind holes or vias or to a predetermined portion of the printed circuit board surface for selectively metal plating on the polymer without the necessity of either an electroless plating bath or the use of precious metal seeds. A preferred conducting polymer is polyaniline. A preferred metal plating is preferably copper or a noble metal such as palladium or silver.
Claims30
A process for fabricating a printed circuit board comprising the steps of:
- providing a substrate;
- applying an inherently electrically conducting polymer containing a partially conjugated .pi. system which polymer is capable of being applied from a non-aqueous or aqueous solvent and is capable of being applied by casting, painting, spin-coating or dip-coating, to a predetermined portion of said substrate, and
- electroplating a metal film from a conventional aqueous electroplating solution onto said conducting polymer.
A process for fabricating a printed circuit board comprising the steps of:
- providing a substrate;
- applying a conducting polymer containing a partially conjugated .pi. system and containing a substance which decomposes upon being exposed to a source of energy for producing a dopant for the polymer to said substrate;
- selectively exposing a predetermined region of the polymer to a source of energy for rendering said predetermined region conductive, and
- electroplating a metal film from a conventional aqueous electroplating solution onto said conductive predetermined region.
A method of spontaneous plating precious metals on a conducting polymer comprising the steps of:
- providing a substrate;
- applying an inherently electrically conducting polymer containing a partially conjugated .pi. system coating, which polymer is capable of being applied from a non-aqueous or aqueous solvent and is capable of being applied by casting, painting, spin-coating or dip-coating, to a predetermined portion of said substrate;
- and
- disposing the polymer coated substrate in a plating bath containing a precious metal salt, where the potential of the conducting polymer is lower than the redox potential of the precious metal, whereby the precious metal spontaneous plates on the conducting polymer.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.