• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.55 no.4
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• pp.202-214
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• 2022

Internal connections between device, package and external terminals for connecting packaging and printed circuit board are normally manufactured by electroless Ni-P plating followed by immersion Au plating (ENIG process) to ensure the connection reliability. In this study, a new non-cyanide-based immersion and electroless Au plating solutions using thiomalic acid as a complexing agent and aminoethanethiol as a reducing agent was investigated on different underlayer electroless Ni-P plating layers. As a result, it was confirmed that the deposition behavior and film properties of electroless Au plating are affected by grain size and impurity of the electroless Ni-P film, which is used as the plating underlayer. Au plating on the electroless Ni-P plating film with a dense surface structure showed the highest bonding strength. In addition, the electroless Au plating film on the Ni-P plating film has a smaller particle size exhibited higher bonding strength than that on the large particle size.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.55 no.5
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• pp.299-307
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• 2022

Gold plating is used as a coating of connector in printed circuit boards, ceramic integrated circuit packages, semiconductor devices and so on, because the film has excellent electric conductivity, solderability and chemical properties such as durability to acid and other chemicals. In most cases, internal connection between device and package and external terminals for connecting packaging and printed circuit board are electroless Ni-P plating followed by immersion Au plating (ENIG) to ensure connection reliability. The deposition behavior and film properties of electroless Au plating are affected by P content, grain size and mixed impurity components in the electroless Ni-P alloy film used as the underlayer plating. In this study, the correlation between electroless nickel plating used as a underlayer layer and cyanide-free electroless Au plating using thiomalic acid as a complexing agent and aminoethanethiol as a reducing agent was investigated.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.55 no.2
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• pp.120-132
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• 2022

In the non-cyanide-based electroless Au plating solution using thiomalic acid as a complexing agent and aminoethanethiol as a reducing agent, analysis of each component constituting the plating solution is essential for the analysis of the reaction mechanism. And component analysis in the plating solution is important for monitoring component changes in the plating process and optimizing the management method. Capillary Electrophoresis (CE) method is rapid, sensitive and quantitative and could be readily applied to analysis of Auⁿ⁺ ion, complexing agent and reducing agent in electroless Au plating solution. In this study, the capillary electrophoresis method was used to analyze each component in the electroless Au plating solution in order to elucidate the complex bonding form and the plating mechanism of the non-cyanide-based electroless Au plating bath. The purpose of this study was to establish data for optimizing the monitoring and management method of plating solution components to improve the uniformity of precipitation and stability. As a result, it was confirmed that the analysis of thiomalic acid as a complexing agent and Auⁿ⁺ ions and the analysis of aminoethanethiol as a reducing agent were possible by capillary electrophoresis. In the newly developed non-cyanide-based electroless Au plating solution, it was confirmed that Auⁿ⁺ ions exist in the form of Au⁺ having a charge of +1, and that thiomalic acid and Au⁺ are combined in a molar ratio of 2 : 1. In addition, it was confirmed that aminoethanethiol can form a complex by combining with Au⁺ ions depending on conditions as well as acting as a reducing agent.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.55 no.2
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• pp.102-119
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• 2022

Gold plating is used as a coating of connecter in printed circuit boards, ceramic integrated circuit packages, semiconductor devices and so on, because the film has excellent electric conductivity, solderability and chemical properties such as durability to acid and other chemicals. As increasing the demand for miniaturization of printed circuit boards and downsizing of electronic devices, several types of electroless gold plating solutions have been developed. Most of these conventional gold plating solutions contain cyanide compounds as a complexing agent. The gold film obtained from such baths usually satisfies the requirements for electronic parts mentioned above. However, cyanide bath is highly toxic and it always has some possibility to cause serious problems in working environment or other administrative aspects. The object of this investigation was to develop a cyanide-free electroless gold plating process that assures the high stability of the solution and gives the excellent solderability of the deposited film. The investigation reported herein is intended to establish plating bath composition and plating conditions for electroless gold plating, with thiomalic acid as a complexing agent. At the same time, we have investigated the solution stability against nickel ion and pull strength of solder ball. Furthermore, by examining the characteristics of the plated Au plating film, the problems of the newly developed electroless Au plating solution were improved and the applicability to various industrial fields was examined. New type electroless gold-plating bath which containing thiomalic acid as a complexing agent showing so good solution stability and film properties as cyanide bath. And this bath shows the excellent stability even if the dissolved nickel ion was added from under coated nickel film, which can be used at the neutral pH range.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 1999.05a
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• pp.708-711
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• 1999

The Cu/Ni/Au lamellar structure is extensively used as an under bump metallization on silicon file, and on printed circuit board(PCB) pads. Ni is plated Cu by either electroless Ni plating, or electrolytic Ni plating. Unlike the electrolytic Ni plating, the electroless Ni plating does not deposit pure Ni, but a mixture of Ni and phosphorous, because hypophosphite Is used in the chemical reaction for reducing Ni ions. The fracture crack extended at the interface between solder balls of plastic ball grid (PBGA) package and conducting pads of PCB. The fracture is duets to segregation at the interface between Ni$_3$Sn$_4$intermetallic and Ni-P layer. The XPS diffraction results of Cu/Ni/Au results of CU/Ni/AU finishs showed that the Ni was amorphous with supersaturated P. The XPS and EDXA results of the fracture surface indicated that both of the fracture occurred on the transition lesion where Sn, P and Ni concentrations changed.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.138-143
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• 1999

Recently, miniaturization of large scale integrated circuits (LSI) and printed circuit board (PCB) have become essential with the downsizing of electronic devices. Gold electroplating is applied of conductivity wiring or terminals for improvement of conductivity and corrosion resistance. However, electroplating is not applicable since the circuits are becoming finer and denser. Accordingly, electroless plating is recently highly attractive method because of the simplicity of the operation requiring no external source of current and no elaborate equipment. In this work, we tried to develop a plating technique on electroless Ni/Au plating. First, the electroless Ni plating was deposited on the PCB with agitation in the bath at $85^{\circ}C$. Then the Au layer was deposited on the Ni layer surface by same method at $90^{\circ}C$. The bonderability were tested in order to evaluate the stability of the electroless Ni/Au by gold wire or solder ball test.

• Laser Solutions
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.52-61
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• 1999

The laser induced forward transfer(LIFT) technique employs a pulsed laser to transfer parts of a thin metal film from an optically transparent target onto an arbitrary substrate in close proximity to the metal film on the target. In this work, a two-step method, the combination of LIFT process, in which a Au film deposited on the $Al_2$O$_3$ substrate by Nd:YAG laser and subsequent Au electroless metal plating on the by LIFT process generated Au seed, was presented. The influence of laser parameters, wavelength, laser power, film thickness and overlap ratio of pulse tracks, on the shapes of deposit and conductor line after electroless plating is experimentally studied. As a results, the threshold power densities for ablation, deposition and metallization were determined and comparison of threshold value between the wave length 1064nm and the second harmonic generated 532nm. In odor to determine a possible application in the electronic industry, a smallest conduct spot size, line width and isolated line space were generated.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.32-38
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• 2007

Ni coating layers were formed using a newly developed electroless Ni plating solution. The properties of Ni coating layer such as internal stress, hardness, surface roughness, crystallinity, solderability and surface morphology were investigated using various tools. Results revealed that internal stress decreased with plating time and reached $40N/mm^2$ at 20 minutes of the plating time. Hardness increased with increasing P content and thickness. Surface roughness of the pad decreased with Ni and Ni/Au plating. Crystallinity decreased with increasing P content. Solderability based on wettability decreased with Ni and Ni/Au plating. Based on surface morphology, it is expected that Ni coating layer formed using a newly developed electroless Ni plating solution is lower than that formed using a commercial electroless Ni plating solution in possibility of black pad occurrence.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.714-719
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• 1996

For the fabrication of the circuits, contact or terminal areas are usually coated with nickel and gold. Usually, diluted palladium solution is applied to initiate electroless nickel plating on the copper circuits. However, the trace amounts of palladium remains on the resin and it causes the extraneous deposition. We confirmed that selectivity was greatly improved by the treatment with the strong reducing agents such as SBH or DMAB. Bondability was greatly influenced by the contents of phosphorus in the deposited nickel. Stabilizers in the electroless gold plating were also influenced the bonding strength. The baths containing cupferron or potassium nickel cyanide as a stabilizer showed superior bondability. The gold deposits having strong orientation with Au(220) and Au(311) showed good bond ability.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.55-62
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• 2001

With a spread of BGA, CSP and fine pitch devices, the need of flatter surface finish in bare board is becoming more critical in solderability. The electroless Ni/Au plating has a solution of these needs and also has being spread to apply to surface finish for bare board in many electronic goods. But, the electroless Ni/Au plating had several issues such as Ni oxidation and phosphorous contents. Before this study, we studied on the effect of BGA solderability in electroless Ni/Au plating and chose some major factors such as the oxidation property of NiP plating and warpage of board. Firstly, we made test board with various plating conditions and improved the plating property through the improvement of NiP oxidation reducing P content. Also, we minimized the warpage of board with the improvement of inner layer structure and the analysis of warpage. For the evaluation of solderability, we analyzed the warpage of board and the plating property after mounting BGA on the board with optimizing conditions. The solder joint of BGA is investigated by SEM(Scanning Electronic Microscope) and OM(Optical Microscope). The composition of joint is used by EDS(Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy). We analyzed the fracture strength and mode by ball shear teser.