Product Name: Baker Roll-to-Roll Selective Vertical Plater (R2R SVP)

Product Description: The Baker R2R SVP is equipped with high speed electrolytic plating cells designed for today's "new generation" of HDI printed circuit board (PCB) production. This is made possible through a selective plating and subsequent soft/differential etching process, removing only the thin seeded layer, and therefore eliminating the need for a metallic etching mask and the use of conventional bulk metal etching chemistry. This product is a new core competence offering, designed to handle FPCs in roll form in a vertical orientation. Features include a unique electrolytic technology that minimizes the formation of planar surface copper nodules, a major contributor in all FPC fabrication yield. The following innovative features of the R2R SVP represent a substantial next generation improvement over previous revisions:

• Unique tension rollers and cathode clips for damage-free transport of thin-core and ultra-thin-core (<25 µm) material in continuous web form.
• Specially balanced high flow, low impingement fluid delivery system to reduce thin material damage and anomalies.
• Unique cell design that minimizes fluid induced wrinkling of the web providing more uniform distribution and stray current protection for proper current ramping and control from cell to cell.

With few exceptions, PCB fabricators do not manufacture flexible printed circuits (FPCs) in roll-to-roll form. The vast majority continue to utilize conventional rigid-panel / sheet processing techniques. The implications of this method (of processing) ultimately limit the quality, capacity, and overall yield of panel processing suppliers. With recent FPC demand now focused on thin dielectric films, the need for new and novel manufacturing is paramount! It is now commonplace (for customers) to design electronic packaging with 12-micron to 75-micron thickness substrates. Such products cannot be handled effectively with conventional rigid-panel-processing protocol. Unfortunately, this dilemma has adversely affected not only the capability of FPC manufacturers but also has projected an unfavorable image to the OEMs that they are supplying. Through utilization of Baker's R2R equipment, customers have manufactured HDI circuits with a 30 micron pitch , chemical milled via-arrays with diameters down to 100 µm, supporting wire bond chip-scale packaging (CSP) utilizing 50 µm wire bond pads, with thin film polyimide and LSP substrates - fabricated with Baker R2R technology.