The present invention relates to a multi-layer electronic component aggregate board and a multi-layer electronic component fabricating method and, more particularly, to an aggregate board constituted by multi-layer electronic components which require trimming for adjustments of characteristics and a fabricating method of such multi-layer electronic components.
Some multi-layer electronic components such as voltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs) require trimming for changing inductance or capacitance to adjust characteristics after the fabrication of the aggregate boards (refer to Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) Nos. 11-127031, 10-93342 and 11-214925). In general, the trimming is performed by applying a laser beam to trimming patterns to cut a portion thereof and, therefore, it is necessary to specify the trimming positions with the highest possible accuracy. Therefore, conventionally, it has been a common practice to perform trimming concurrently with image recognition for the trimming patterns or to perform trimming concurrently with referring to recognition marks.
However, the trimming method using image recognition of trimming patterns may require complicated image processing, thus inducing the problem of large consumption of time for processing or degradation of the recognition accuracy, in the case where the trimming patterns and peripheral pattern shapes are complicated. Further, the method which refers to recognition marks has the possibility of causing inaccurate specification of the trimming positions due to pattern deviations among layers, in the case where the recognition marks and the trimming patterns are formed in different layers.
Consequently, it is an object of the present invention to provide a multi-layer electronic component aggregate board and a multi-layer electronic component fabricating method which enable easily specifying trimming positions with high accuracy.
A multi-layer electronic component aggregate board according to the present invention is a multi-layer electronic component aggregate board which enables extracting a plurality of multi-layer electronic components by cutting and includes a plurality of insulation layers, trimming patterns formed on a predetermined insulation layer out of the plurality of insulation layers and recognition marks formed on the predetermined insulation layer, the recognition marks indicating the relative positional relationship with respect to the trimming patterns.
With the present invention, since there are provided the recognition marks indicating the relative positional relationship with respect to the trimming patterns, it is possible to specify the trimming positions with an extremely simple process, even in the case of specifying the trimming positions through image recognition. Furthermore, since the recognition marks and the trimming patterns are formed on the same layer, it is possible to prevent the occurrence of pattern deviations among layers, thus enabling specifying the trimming positions with high accuracy. This enables easily and accurately performing adjustments of the characteristics of multi-layer electronic components which require trimming, as typified by voltage-controlled oscillators. The trimming patterns may be patterns which enable varying the inductance or the capacitance of themselves by trimming.
Preferably, the recognition marks are made of conductors formed on the predetermined insulation layer. In this case, the trimming patterns and the recognition marks may be concurrently formed with a single process, which may prevent the occurrence of pattern deviations in principle, thus enabling specifying the trimming positions with extremely high accuracy.
Preferably, the predetermined insulation layer is an internal insulation layer which is covered at its both sides with other insulation layers. In this case, the trimming patterns will not occupy the component mounting surfaces of the multi-layer electronic components, thus enabling reduction of two-dimensional sizes of the multi-layer electronic components.
Out of the plurality of insulation layers, the insulation layers covering the recognition marks are preferably exposed at least at the regions lying over the recognition marks. This enables visually recognizing the recognition marks with high clarity, through the insulation layers.
Preferably, the recognition marks are arranged in the cutting allowance regions for enabling extraction of the plurality of multi-layer electronic components by cutting. In this case, the recognition marks will not occupy the effective areas at all, thus enabling reduction of the two-dimensional sizes of the multi-layer electronic components.
Further, a multi-layer electronic component fabricating method according to the present invention includes an aggregate board fabricating process for fabricating an aggregate board including a plurality of multi-layer electronic components, a trimming process for applying trimming to trimming patterns provided in the respective multi-layer electronic components for adjusting the characteristics of the plurality of multi-layer electronic components, and a cutting process for cutting the aggregate board for extracting the plurality of multi-layer electronic components, in the trimming process, the trimming positions are specified by using recognition marks formed on the same plane as the trimming patterns.
The present invention also enables easily adjusting the characteristics of multi-layer electronic components with high accuracy. Further, since the recognition marks have a substantially fixed relative positional relationship with the trimming patterns, it is possible to expect the required amount of trimming for providing desired characteristics with respect to the recognition marks as a reference, by determining the characteristics of the multi-layer electronic components before trimming. This can eliminate the necessity of performing trimming concurrently with determination of the characteristics, thus enabling provision of desired characteristics by performing the amount of trimming determined as a calculated value.
Preferably, the aggregate board fabricating process includes a process for forming the trimming patterns and the recognition marks on a predetermined insulation layer with a single process. This can also prevent the occurrence of pattern deviations in principle, thus enabling specification of the trimming positions with extremely high accuracy.
Preferably, the aggregate board fabricating process further includes a process for forming another insulation layer covering the trimming patterns and the recognition marks. This can also prevent the trimming patterns from occupying the component mounting surfaces of the multi-layer electronic components, thus enabling reduction of the two-dimensional sizes of the multi-layer electronic components. In this case, in the trimming process, the trimming is performed by applying a laser beam from said another insulation layers side with respect to the predetermined insulation layer.
Preferably, the aggregate board fabricating process further includes a process for forming a conductor layer on the another insulation layer, said conductor layer covering at least a part of a regions lying over the trimming patterns such that at least a regions of a surface of the another insulation layer which lie over the recognition marks are exposed. This enables visually recognizing the recognition marks with high clarity, through the insulation layers.
Preferably, in the cutting process, the aggregate board is cut along the recognition marks for extracting the plurality of multi-layer electronic components. In this case, the recognition marks will not occupy the effective areas at all, thus enabling reduction of the two-dimensional sizes of the multi-layer electronic components.
As described above, the present invention enables easily specifying the trimming positions with high accuracy.
Preferred embodiments of the present invention will now be explained in detail with reference to the drawings.
As illustrated in
As illustrated in
Further, metal materials such as copper (Cu) may be employed as the materials of the conductor layers 121 to 124 and thickness are preferably set to within the range of about 10 micrometers to 20 micrometers. Further, the lowermost conductor layer 121 forming the mounting surface 100a is a ground pattern and generally covers the most portion of the insulation layer 111, although it is not particularly limited thereto.
A trimming pattern is formed in the conductor layer 122 and a laser beam L will be applied thereto from the mounting surface 100a side for trimming, which will be described in more detail later. Namely, with the present embodiment, the trimming pattern is not provided on the component mounting surface 100b (conductor layer 124) , and an internal pattern on the internal insulation layer 112 which is covered at its both sides with the other insulation layers 111 and 113 constitutes the trimming pattern. Although in general multi-layer electronic components of this type include trimming patterns provided on component mounting surface (refer to Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) Nos. 11-127031 and 10-93342), if a trimming pattern is provided on the component mounting surface 100b, this will increase a two-dimensional size of the multi-layer electronic component, since various types of chip components are mounted on the component mounting surface 100b as previously described. In view of this point, the multi-layer electronic components 100 according to the present embodiment include trimming patterns provided in internal conductor layers 122.
As illustrated in
While most portions of the mounting surfaces 100a of the respective multi-layer electronic components 100 are covered with the resist layer 141 as illustrated in
As illustrated in
In the present embodiment, the trimming pattern 122b constitutes a pattern which enables adjusting the inductance of itself by trimming and, by cutting the trimming pattern 122b by a certain length from a point A to a point B illustrated in
Hereinbefore, there has been described the structure of the multi-layer electrode components aggregate board 10 according to the present embodiment. Next, there will be described a method for fabricating multi-layer electronic components according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention.
At first, a multi-layer electronic component aggregate board 10 as mentioned above is fabricated with an aggregate board fabricating process (step S10). The aggregate board fabricating process includes a layer-laminating process (step S11) for forming and laminating conductor layers 121 to 124 on the surfaces of the insulation layers 111 to 113, a plating and resist-forming process (step S12) for forming the plated layer 131 and the resist layer 141 covering the lowermost conductor layer 121 and for forming the plated layer 132 and the resist layer 142 covering the uppermost conductor layer 124, a through-hole forming process (step S13) for forming the through holes 160a and 160b, a through-hole electrodes forming process (step S14) for forming the conductors on the inner walls of the through holes 160a and 160b, and a chip-components mounting process (step S15) for mounting the chip components 150 on the component mounting surface 100b.
It is preferable that the layer-laminating process (step S11) includes a process for forming the conductor layers 122 and 123 on the surfaces of the insulation layer 112 which forms a core board, subsequently sandwiching them between prepregs made of uncured resin or semi-cured resin and then curing the prepregs through hot pressing to form the insulation layers 111 and 113, although the layer-laminating process is not limited thereto. In this case, the layer-laminating process includes a process for forming the patterns illustrated in
As previously described, the conductor layer 121 formed on the surface of the insulation layer 111 is generally a ground pattern. Therefore, the conductor layer 121 is formed to cover the most portion of the insulation layer 111. Thus, the conductor layer 121 covers a portion or all of the regions lying over the trimming patterns 122b. In this case, although a portion or all of the trimming patterns 122b can not be visually recognized from the mounting surface 100a side, the conductor layer 121 is formed not to cover at least the regions lying over the recognition marks 122a, which enables visually recognizing the recognition marks 122a from the mounting surface 100a side. In the plating and resist-forming process (step S12), the resist layer 141 is formed such that the regions of the surface of the insulation layer 111 which lie over the recognition marks 122a are exposed.
When the fabrication of the multi-layer electronic component aggregate board 10 has been completed as described above, then adjustments of characteristics of the respective multi-layer electronic components 100 are performed in the trimming process (step S20). In the trimming process, as illustrated in
Namely, by grasping in advance the relative positional relationship between the recognition marks 122a and the trimming pattern 122b, it is possible to specify the position to be subjected to trimming by referring to the recognition marks 122a which are visible through the regions 141a by visual recognition or image recognition, although actually the trimming pattern 122b can not be viewed from the mounting surface 100a side as illustrated in
Also, by determining in advance the relationship between the amount of trimming and the amount of characteristics change and then defining the relationship as a mathematical expression or a table, instead of performing trimming concurrently with determination of the characteristics, it is possible to easily determine the required amount of trimming only by determining the characteristics of the multi-layer electronic component 100 before trimming. In this case, it is not necessary to perform trimming concurrently with determination of characteristics and it is possible to provide desired characteristics by performing the amount of trimming determined as a calculated value. In this case, similarly, it is possible to set the amount of trimming using the recognition marks 122a as a reference, thus performing accurate amounts of trimming.
Then, after performing such trimming to the respective multi-layer electronic components 100, the aggregate board 10 is cut along the cutting allowance regions 101a, 101b in the cutting process (step S30) to enable extracting the multi-layer electronic components 100 which have been subjected to the characteristics adjustments.
As described above, with the present embodiment, since there are provided, in the aggregate board 10, the recognition marks 122a indicating the relative positional relationship with respect to the trimming patterns 122b, it is possible to specify the trimming positions with significantly simple processes even in the case of specifying the trimming positions through image recognition. Furthermore, since the recognition marks 122a are conductor layers formed on the layer on which the trimming patterns 122b are formed, they can be concurrently formed with a single process. This can prevent the occurrence of pattern deviations therebetween in principle, thus enabling specifying the trimming positions with extremely high accuracy.
Further, with the present embodiment, since the trimming patterns 122b are provided in the internal conductor layer 122, the trimming patterns do not occupy the component mounting surfaces 100b, thus enabling reduction of two-dimensional sizes of the multi-layer electronic components 100. Furthermore, with the present embodiment, since the recognition marks 122a are arranged along the cutting allowance regions 101a and 101b, the recognition marks. 122a do not occupy the effective areas on the aggregate board at all.
Further, if trimming patterns are formed on the mounting surface 100a, the conductor constituting the trimming patterns will be dispersed therearound during trimming thus inducing short-circuit malfunctions. However, with the present embodiment, the trimming patterns 122b are provided in the internal conductor layer 122, thus preventing the occurrence of such a problem.
Further, by providing the trimming patterns 122b in the internal conductor layer 122 as in the present embodiment, the trimming patterns 122b are covered at its both sides with the insulation layer 111 and the insulation layer 112 thus providing more stable electrical characteristics than the case of forming the trimming patterns on the mounting surface 100a.
As described above, the present embodiment enables easily specifying the trimming positions with high accuracy and also enables miniaturization of the completed multi-layer electronic components 100.
The present invention is not limited to the embodiment and various modifications may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention defined in the claims. It goes without saying that such modifications are also included in the scope of the present invention.
For example, while the embodiment employs cross-shaped patterns as the recognition marks 122a, the recognition marks 122a are not limited thereto and may be any patterns indicative of the relative positional relationship with respect to the trimming patterns 122b. Therefore, they may be L-shaped patterns as illustrated in
Further, while the embodiment performs trimming by applying a laser beam L from the mounting surface 100a side, the trimming may be performed by applying a laser beam L from the component mounting surface 100b side as illustrated in
Further, while the embodiment employs variable-inductance patterns as the trimming patterns 122b, the trimming patterns 122b may be any patterns which enable adjusting the characteristics of the multi-layer electronic components and may be, for example, variable-capacitance patterns.
Further, while in the embodiment the regions 141a are not covered with the conductor layer 121, the plated layer 131 and the resist layer 141 so that the insulation layer 111 is exposed thereat, it is not necessary that the insulation layer 111 is exposed at the regions 141a and the regions 141a may be covered with some layers as long as the recognition marks 122a can be visually recognized.
Further, while the embodiment employs the recognition marks 122a placed at the intersections of the cutting allowance regions 101a and 101b, the positions of the recognition marks are not particularly limited as long as they are formed on the plane surface on which the trimming patterns are formed. However, by placing the recognition marks along at least one of the cutting allowance regions 101a and the cutting allowance regions 101b, it is possible to prevent the recognition marks from occupying the effective areas.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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2004-212496 | Jul 2004 | JP | national |