Development of Laser Process and System for Stencil Manufacturing

Stencil is used normally as a mask for solder pasting on pad of a printed circuit board (PCB). The objective of this study is to develop a stencil cutting system and determine the optimal conditions to make good-quality stencil by using a Nd:YAG laser. The effects of process parameters such as laser power, type of mask, gas pressure, cutting speed and pulse duration on the cut edge quality were investigated. In order to analyze the cut surface characteristics (roughness, kerfwidth, dross) optical microscopy, SEM microscopy and roughness measurements were used. As a result, the optimal conditions of cutting process parameters were determined, and the practical feasibility of the proposed system was also examined by using a commercial Gerber file for PCB stencil manufacturing.