The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing a circuit board and data used for manufacturing the circuit board.
With a recent trend of reduction in size and an increase in density of electronic equipment, double-sided circuit boards or multi-layered circuit boards are increasingly employed in place of conventional single-sided circuit boards in the field of circuit boards on which electronic components are mounted. Also, high-density circuit boards capable of mounting as many circuits as possible thereon are being developed.
As for the high-density circuit boards, design rules for circuits are becoming stringent and are requiring finer processing techniques for forming the circuits as compared with the conventional circuit boards. Regarding the multi-layered circuit boards, progress is continuously made for the development of interstitial circuit connection, through-hole and via-hole positioning techniques, and fine-pitch interstitial connection techniques.
However, as the design rules for circuits are becoming increasingly stringent, the sizes of circuit patterns, diameters of through-holes or via-holes in circuit boards, and the values of allowable applied current are becoming increasingly smaller.
In the case of an ordinary electronic circuit, the values of current flowing in each component in the circuit vary and, for example, large current values are required for power supply circuits. Although the value of current flowing in a signal circuit or the like is very small, the design rule for the circuit is required to be finer because of circuit complications and requirements for a reduction in size of electronic equipment.
Thus, in the present circuit boards, it is required to form circuit patterns through-holes or via-holes ranging from a large size to a small size in one sheet of a circuit board.
In an ordinary circuit board, a paste printing method or a photolithography method is employed for forming circuit patterns. Accordingly, it is not too difficult to form circuit patterns ranging from a large size to a small size together.
However, in forming through-holes or via-holes which have different diameters, it is necessary to use a drilling machine having multiple axes in which drills of different diameters can be used during a drilling operation. Also, in the case of drilling by using a laser beam, it is necessary to adopt a plurality of machining conditions for each of the diameters or to control the diameters by spiral scanning of the laser beam. Further, in a case of a laser process using an image transfer method, it is necessary to use a plurality of masks having a plurality of diameters, and the machine configuration becomes complicated, thereby preventing high speed machining and increasing the cost of manufacturing.
Also, data by which the finishing coordinate position in the substrate is indicated to the drilling machine is usually called NC data which is stored in paper tape, electronic medium or the like. The data becomes complicated and increased in quantity when the sizes of diameters increase, thereby requiring much more time for preparation of the data.
In the production of circuit boards, a plurality of circuit boards are arranged within a standard work size, and a tool pattern used in the manufacturing process is located at the periphery of the work size. The tool pattern includes test patterns for monitoring the board characteristics and guide marks for positioning the board in the manufacturing process.
Also, positioning marks and the like for mounting electronic components on the circuit board are often formed on the circuit boards.
However, although it is not necessary to miniaturize such guide marks at the same level as for higher-density circuit boards, it is convenient for the marks to have a specific size appropriate for their recognition.
For example, when via-holes for interstitial connection are formed in the substrate material by using a laser beam, currently available techniques are able to manufacture holes having minimum diameters ranging from 80 to 50 μm for extra-high-density circuit boards. However, if guide marks or the like are formed in such diameters, it is difficult to recognize the mark positions and, therefore, guide marks or the like are usually formed in diameters of 200 μm or more. To achieve the purpose, an exclusive machine and machining system for forming fine holes are employed to make holes with large diameters for guide marks, causing losses with respect to the time and cost.
In a high-density circuit board, it is necessary to make hundreds of thousands of fine holes per square meter and, thus, tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of holes for via-holes are formed per sheet of a work size.
On the other hand, only about several tens of holes per sheet of a work size are formed for guide marks. Thus, there arises a problem of a decrease in a drilling efficiency because of the operation required for making a small number of guide mark holes having large diameters.
In order to address such a problem, the present invention is intended to provide a method of manufacturing a circuit board and manufacturing data by which both fine holes and large holes can be efficiently formed by using one drilling system.
The present invention comprises, in the process of forming a through-hole or blind-hole located at least in one desired position of the substrate, setting a drilling target position for each hole at the desired position and a plurality of auxiliary drilling positions at the periphery of the drilling target position, and forming a plurality of holes at the drilling target position and the plurality of auxiliary drilling positions. Also, in another preferred embodiment of the present invention, the present invention comprises forming a plurality of holes only at the auxiliary drilling positions per one hole at a desired position.
According to the present invention, it is possible to make through-holes or blind-holes having several sizes of different diameters by using one drilling jig and a single drilling condition. That is, relatively large holes can be formed by only using a special machine for fine drilling, and circuit boards can be efficiently manufactured at low costs.
The preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in the following with reference to
As shown in
In the present preferred embodiment, the thickness of the copper-clad-laminate is 0.6 mm, and the thickness of the copper foil 2 is 18 μm.
As shown in
A drilling method is used for forming holes. A diameter of the positioning through-hole 3 is about 1 mm, and a diameter of the through-hole 4 is 0.2 mm.
As shown in
Subsequently, as shown in
For positioning of the exposure mask for patterning, the positioning through-hole 3 is recognized by a CCD camera, and coordinates of a center are obtained by image processing.
In the circuit board manufacturing process described in the present preferred embodiment, when the positioning through-hole 3 is different in diameter from the through-hole 4, the method conventionally employed was to use drills of different diameters. Therefore, the drilling speed became slower as compared to the case of continuous drilling to form holes of a same diameter. On the other hand, in the present preferred embodiment, there is no decrease in the drilling speed since a laser beam of same diameter is used for drilling.
A diameter of the auxiliary hole 7 is 0.2 mm which is the same as the diameter of the through-hole 4. In this preferred embodiment, the positioning through-hole 3 is not formed by using a drill of 1 mm in diameter, but a drill of 0.2 mm in diameter is used which is the same diameter used for forming the through-hole 4, and a through-hole of 1 mm in diameter is obtained by performing drilling 16 times along the inner periphery of the 1 mm diameter of the positioning through-hole 3.
In the case of higher-density circuit boards, the exposure mark aligning accuracy is important for patterning with respect to the through-hole 4. In the present preferred embodiment, the positioning through-hole 3 can be formed by using a same machining head as used for the through-hole 4, and it is possible to form both holes with excellent reproducibility of their relative positions.
Further, since only one size of a drill having a 0.2 mm diameter is used, there is no time loss caused due to a changing of the machining head, and coordinate data only expressing simple coordinate positions can be adopted for the drilling operation.
Also, in the drilling method in the preferred embodiment, the positioning through-hole 3 has a slightly deformed shape, but when recognizing the positioning through-hole 3 using an exposure device for patterning or the like, the center of a gravity position of the image of the positioning through-hole 3 is recognized as the center of the hole, and therefore, the peripheral deformed shape will not affect the drilling accuracy.
Also, in the present preferred embodiment, the positioning through-holes 3 are formed by executing drilling 16 times, but it is possible to decrease the number of drilling times taking into account the difference in diameter between the auxiliary hole 7 and the positioning through-hole 3, and the margin or the like for equipment in the manufacturing process with respect to the deformed shape of the hole.
The substrate material 8 shown in
As shown in
Next, after filling conductive paste 10 into the positioning through-hole 3 and the through-hole 4 by a printing process, the film 9 is peeled off to form a substrate material 8 with conductive paste 10 filled as shown in
Further, as shown
As shown in
In the experiment performed by the inventors, the diameter of the positioning through-hole 3 had to be at least 200 μm in diameter for the observation of the guide hole using the X-ray radioscopy device.
When the diameter of the guide hole is less than 150 μm, the image was not clear enough to observe and it was difficult to accurately set the positioning guide hole 11 at the target position. However, it is noted that this is dependent upon the thickness of the substrate material 8 and the copper foil 2.
On the other hand, as for the diameter of the through-hole 4, the diameter adopted is about 130 μm because the surface and back copper foils have good electrical connection with each other when the diameter is from 100 to 150 μm.
Next, as shown in
Next, through a developing process and an etching process (not shown), a patterning of the copper foil 2 was performed to obtained a double-sided circuit board with a circuit 6 formed thereon as shown in
A method of forming the positioning through-hole 3 in the present preferred embodiment is shown in
The positioning through-hole 3 is a round hole of 200 μm in diameter, and the drilling target position 14 is located at the center thereof. However, the five holes in total at the drilling target position 14 and the auxiliary drilling position 15 are respectively about 130 μm in diameter as shown because they are formed under the same machining conditions as those for through-hole 4.
The method is designed so that the outer periphery of the auxiliary drilling position 15 comes in contact with the outer periphery of the positioning through-hole 3, and the center of each auxiliary drilling position 15 is shifted about 35 μm from the center of the drilling target position 14.
A shape of a hole obtained by irradiating above-mentioned five holes with a carbon dioxide laser is shown in
The shape of the hole is slightly deformed, but the positioning through-hole 3 obtained is about 200 μm in size, and such slight deformation will cause no bad influences to the post-process because of the same reason as mention in the preferred embodiment 1.
The result of study by the inventors shows that, by taking the specifications of diameter, X-ray or CCD camera and other image recognizing devices used in the circuit board manufacturing process into account, it is effective to make the distance between the auxiliary drilling positions and the drilling target position, that is, the amount of the shift between the centers, to be 75 μm or less, and more preferable to be 50 μm or less.
Also, in order make the hole preferable in shape or formed so as not to affect the accuracy of recognition and the like in the post-process, it is effective to make a distance between the auxiliary drilling position 15 and the drilling target position 14 to be nearly half or less, and more preferably to be ¼ or less, of the diameter of the hole obtained by one drilling. That is, in the present preferred embodiment, it is preferable to make the diameter nearly half or less, and more preferably to be ¼ or less of the diameter of the through-hole 4 and the value described above.
When the amount of the shift is beyond the above-described range, the shape of the hole obtained is greatly deformed, and in this preferred embodiment, it may cause unstable filling of conductive paste, variation in accuracy of recognition by X-ray, or remarkable influences given to the hole shape due to the variation in the hole position accuracy of the laser processing machine.
In the present preferred embodiment, an auxiliary drilling position 15 is formed at four positions, but better results may be obtained by forming more holes for the purpose of improving the hole shape.
To perform the drilling operation efficiently, there is a method in which the holes are formed at two points shifted 35 μm to the right and left from the center of drilling target position 14, and the method can form a hole of 200 μm in size by performing two drillings. However, the hole obtained is generally oval in shape as a matter of course. Also, when higher recognition accuracy is required in the post-process, for instance, it is more preferable to employ a method of forming three holes at three apices of an equilateral triangle with the drilling target position 14 at a center or forming four holes as described in the present embodiment.
On the other hand,
When data of the present embodiment is used, it is very easy to process the data since all the machining coordinates may be processed under a single machining condition in the drilling machine which receives the data.
In
Thus, in the configuration of the present preferred embodiment, the diameter indication can be simplified, and a preparation and an operation of the circuit board manufacturing data can be simplified.
Similar to the second preferred embodiment, the manufacturing method in the present preferred embodiment proceeds as follows. A positioning by X-ray recognition is performed at the position of positioning through-holes 3 in order to drill the positioning guide hole after filling conductive paste into prepreg, peeling off the film, and heat pressing the board material sandwiched with copper foils.
The positioning through-holes 3 consist of five through-holes 3 as shown in
By this method, as compared with the case of forming one positioning through-hole 3, it is possible to perform the drilling operation while experiencing less influence by the shape of each hole. In the present preferred embodiment, four positioning through-holes 3 are formed at positions shifted 0.8 mm from each other in the up, down, right, and left directions from the positioning through-hole 3 at the center.
A rough recognition through-hole 16, as shown in
The rough recognition through-hole 16 is used as a guide hole when the substrate material 1 is placed on a stage for X-ray recognition of the positioning through-hole 3. The position of the rough recognition through-hole 16 is first recognized by an low magnification X-ray camera, and positioning of the substrate material 1 on the table is performed with reference to the position.
For the positioning through-hole 3, it is necessary to accurately form the positioning guide hole, and therefore, a large magnification X-ray camera is used for the recognition of the positioning through-hole 3.
Since the visual field of the large magnification X-ray camera is narrow, when the substrate material 1 is placed on the table with reference to an end of the substrate material 1 without using the rough recognition through-hole 16, the positioning through-hole 3 may sometimes fail to be within the visual field of the large magnification X-ray camera.
Accordingly, the rough recognition through-hole 16 is required to be large enough so that it may be recognized by a low magnification X-ray camera having a wide visual field. In the example of this preferred embodiment, the positioning through-hole 3 and the rough recognition through-hole 16 are formed under same conditions of a laser beam drilling machine, and a positional relation between both holes is excellent in reproducibility. Further, the positional relation between the positioning through-hole 3 and the through-hole 4 is extremely high in accuracy, and it is possible to obtain a manufacturing method to obtain a high-density circuit board of high quality in high yield.
In the present preferred embodiment, the large magnification X-ray camera has a visual field of a 3 mm square that is sufficient to accurately recognize the five marks as described above. In addition, the visual field of the low magnification X-ray camera is a 10 mm square and is able to precisely recognize the rough recognition through-hole 16 even when the drilling position by the laser beam includes a few millimeters of variation against the outer shape of substrate material 1.
As a method of drilling using a laser beam, it is possible to employ a drilling machine using a collecting optical system or an image transfer method using a mask. When holes of different diameters are formed, in the case of a conventional collecting optical system, it is necessary to change the beam energy or aperture used for the optical system and, in a case of a conventional image transfer method, it is necessary to replace the masks with holes having different diameters, thereby resulting in longer tact time. Also, the replacing job causes a problem such that it is hard to assure the accuracy of relative positions between holes of different diameters. In the case of the present invention, it is possible to form a number of holes of different diameters by using the same system, and there is no need of replacing a mask or the like.
Also, even in the case of a method of recognizing the conductive paste filled in the rough recognition through-hole directly by a CCD camera or the like, for example, by partially removing the copper foil in the position of the rough recognition through-hole by etching, the present invention is capable of obtaining the intended result because of the reasons as described above.
According to each of the preferred embodiments of the present invention, each of the positioning hole and the through-hole is described as a through-hole, but same effects may be obtained with blind-holes. Also, the method of drilling is not limited to a drill method and a carbon dioxide laser beam method. For example, it is also possible to employ a laser beam for a laser ablation using an excimer laser or the like, and a drilling method using a solid-state laser such as YAG laser or various types of energy beams.
Further, the drilling method based on the present invention is applicable even when the process is performed by using only the same drilling method described above or by using a plurality of drilling methods described above.
Also, in the above description, the through-hole and the positioning hole are filled with conductive paste, but it is also possible to make interstitial connections by plating the through-hole and the positioning hole and to use the plated holes recognized as reference marks.
As described above, in a process of forming at least a through-hole or a blind-hole at one desired position of a substrate, the present invention comprises setting a drilling target position for each hole and a plurality of auxiliary drilling positions at the periphery of the drilling target position, and performing a plurality of drillings at the drilling target position and the plurality of auxiliary drilling positions in order to form a through-hole or blind-hole at the desired position. According to the present invention, it is possible to form a plurality of holes having various kinds of diameters by using one type of machining equipment or ajig under a single machining condition. Also, holes of relatively large size may be formed by using a special machine for fine hole drilling, and it is possible to improve the accuracy of relative positions of holes having different diameters. Thus, the present invention is able to reduce the time and costs required for highly accurate circuit board drilling.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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2000-310419 | Oct 2000 | JP | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
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PCT/JP01/08905 | 10/10/2001 | WO | 00 | 9/10/2002 |
Publishing Document | Publishing Date | Country | Kind |
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WO02/30636 | 4/18/2002 | WO | A |
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