• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.189-206
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• 1992

The effect of activation and electroless nickel plating conditions on contact properties was investi-gated for selective electroless nickel plating of Si wafers in order to obtain an optimum condition of con-tact hole filling. According to RCA prosess, p-type silicon (100) surface was cleaned out and activated. The effects of temperature, DMAB concentration, time, and strirring were investigated for activation of p-type Si(100) surface. The optimal activation condition was 0.2M HF, 1mM PdCl2, 2mM EDTA,$ 70^{\circ}C$, and 90sec under ultrasonic vibration. In electroless nickel plating, the effect of temperature, DMAB concentra-tion, pH, and plating time were studied. The optimal plating condition found was 0.10M NiSO4.H2O, 0.11M Citrate, pH 6.8, $60^{\circ}C$, 30minutes. The contact resistance of films was comparatively low. It took 30minutes to obtain 1$\mu\textrm{m}$ thick film with 8mM DMAB concentration. The film surface roughness was improved with decreasing temperature and decreasing pH of the plating solution. The best quality of the film was obtained at the condition of temperature $60^{\circ}C$ and pH 6.0. The micro-vickers hardness of film was about 800Hv. Plating rate of nickel on the hole pattern was slower than that of nickel on the line pattern.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.109-120
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• 1986

The electroless nickel plating on high alumina ceramics was performed in the bath containing nickel chloride, sodium hypophosphite and mono- or bi-carboxylic acid as a complexing agent in order to examine the empirical rate law as well as the effects of the complexing agent, plating temperature and pH on the rate of deposition. Adding the carboxylic acid to the plating bath, the rate of deposition was increased considerably, and each of the complexing agents showed a maximum deposition rate plateau around a particular concentration of the complexing agent. The rate of deposition was increased with increasing either temperature or pH, but microstructure of the surface became more rough. Furthermore, empirical rate law of the elecltroless nickel deposition on high alumina ceramics was discussed with the activation energy and other rate parameters calculated.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.43-48
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• 2011

Electroless nickel platings on carbon substrate were investigated for porous MCFC electrode applications. Acidic bath and alkaline bath were used in electroless nickel plating on carbon substrates. The rate of electroless plating in alkaline bath was faster than that in acidic bath. As pH was increased, the deposition rate was increased in both baths and the content of phosphorus in nickel deposit was decreased. The residual stresses of nickel deposit from acidic bath showed the compressive stress and on the other hand those from alkaline bath showed the high tensile stress. High tensile internal stress in nickel deposit caused the cracks over pH 11. Thiourea was added to both acidic and alkaline bath. The deposition rate of nickel was increased upto 0.5 ppm of thiourea and decreased. The maximum concentration of thiourea for the electroless nickel plating on carbon substrate was 1.5 ppm in both acidic and alkaline bath. Succinic acid was added to acidic bath. Addition of succinic acid up to 5 g/L increased the deposition rate of nickel and beyond which the deposition rate was decreased and maintained.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.31-39
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• 2000

Relationships between the plating condition and the plating rate of the deposition film for the electroless plating of Co-Cu-P alloy were discussed in this report. The result obtained from this experiment were summarized as follow ; The optimum bath composition was consisted of 0.8 ppm thiourea as a stabilizing agent. Composition of the deposit was found to be uniform after two hours of electroless plating. Plating rates of nickel-catalytic surface and zincate-catalytic surface were found to be very closely equal, but the plating time of nickel-catalytic surface took longer than that of the zincated-catalytic surface.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.709-713
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• 1996

Mechanical solderless chip packaging with small gold bumps or metal balls has increased in the electronic devices. The preparation of conductive particles (5~7 $\mu\textrm{m}$ diamiter) by electroless nickel plating have been investigated. Generally, batch type electroless plating is applied to provide conductivity on the nonconductors. Since the surface areas of particles are much larger than the bulk substrate, accordingly the electroless plating bath becomes unstable. Thus, we applied the continuous dropping method for the preparation of conductive particles. The uniform coverage of deposited nickel on the particles was obtained by using ammonium acetate as a complexing agent, and surface coverage is further improved without coagulation of particles by the surface active agent treatment before enter the plating bath.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers C
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• v.49 no.6
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• pp.367-374
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• 2000

This paper presents a method to fabricate freestanding structures by (100) silicon anisotropic etching and nickel electroless plating. The electroless plating process is simpler than the electroplating, and provides good coating uniformity and improved mechanical properties. Furthermore, the (100) silicon anisotropic etching in KOH solution with being aligned to <100> direction provides vertical (100) sidewalls on etched (100) surface. In this paper, the effects of the nickel electroless plating condition on the properties of electroless plated metal structures are investigated to apply fabrication of micro structures and then various micro structures are fabricated by nickel electroless plating. And then, the structures are released by silicon anisotropic etching in KOH solution with a large gap between the structure and the substrate. The fabricated cantilever structures are $210\mum$. wide, $5\mum$. thick and $15\mum$. over the silicon substrate, and the comb structure has the comb electrodes which are $4\mum$. wide and $4.3\mum$. thick separated by$1\mum$. It is released by silicon anisotropic etching in KOH solution. The gap between the structure and the substrate is $2.5\mum$.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.175-182
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• 1993

Electroless plating of nickel was studied electrochemically in the presence of complexing agents. Nickel sulfate solution with dimethylamine borance(DMAB) as the reducing agent was used. Effects of temperature pH, concentration and complexing agents-citric acid, EDTA, tartaric acid-were studied.Experimental meas-urements showed that the rate of electroless nickel deposition was closely related to electrochemical parame-ters such as temdperature, pH, concentration and the properties of complexing agets.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.250-253
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• 2007

An evaporated Ti/Pd/Ag contact system is most widely used to make high-efficiency silicon solar cells, however, the system is not cost effective due to expensive materials and vacuum techniques. Commercial solar cells with screen-printed contacts formed by using Ag paste suffer from a low fill factor and a high shading loss because of high contact resistance and low aspect ratio. Low-cost Ni and Cu metal contacts have been formed by using electroless plating and electroplating techniques to replace the Ti/Pd/Ag and screen-printed Ag contacts. Ni/Cu alloy is plated on a silicon substrate by electro-deposition of the alloy from an acetate electrolyte solution, and nickel-silicide formation at the interface between the silicon and the nickel enhances stability and reduces the contact resistance. It was, therefore, found that nickel-silicide was suitable for high-efficiency solar cell applications. The Ni contact was formed on the front grid pattern by electroless plating followed by anneal ing at $380{\sim}400^{\circ}C$ for $15{\sim}30$ min at $N_{2}$ gas to allow formation of a nickel-silicide in a tube furnace or a rapid thermal processing(RTP) chamber because nickel is transformed to NiSi at $380{\sim}400^{\circ}C$. The Ni plating solution is composed of a mixture of $NiCl_{2}$ as a main nickel source. Cu was electroplated on the Ni layer by using a light induced plating method. The Cu electroplating solution was made up of a commercially available acid sulfate bath and additives to reduce the stress of the copper layer. The Ni/Cu contact was found to be well suited for high-efficiency solar cells and was successfully formed by using electroless plating and electroplating, which are more cost effective than vacuum evaporation. In this paper, we investigated low-cost Ni/Cu contact formation by electroless and electroplating for crystalline silicon solar cells.

• 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.