"Lead Inventor:
Alan West
Gold-Plating Hampered by Low-Quality Film, Wasted Gold and Poor Annealing :
Electro and Electro-less plating operations using gold and copper deposits have a wide range of applications from printed circuit boards (PCBs) to automotives and jewelry. However, existing gold-plating technologies have several shortcomings. Not high quality and porous film lead to higher than desired electrical conductivity, improve needed microstructure, susceptibility to corrosion, and unsatisfactory adhesion. Other problems include significant wastage of the gold deposit driving up the cost of the plating process and less effectiveness of the annealing process.
Gold-Plating Technology Reduces Waste, Improves Annealing:
This invention addresses the unmet need by presenting a novel system to simultaneously anneal the substrate during the growth phase of the plating process. It is a new type of gold and copper plating operation. The invention also emphasizes a slow growth phase in contrast to prior inventions.
Applications:
• The invention is flexible enough to be used for patterned and maskless plating
• It can be used, because of the reduced electrical conductivity, in manufacturing microelectronic connectors
• It has particular utility for maskless plating of gold onto electronic connectors which use reel to reel plating designs
• It can be used to obtain alloy plating
• It can be used to provide semiconductor plating services -- PGAs (Pin Grid Array), RF/Microwave packages, surface mount packages, PCB (Printed Circuit Boards), chip wafers used in cell phones, corrosion resistant layers in aerospace and automotive
• It can be used in making high quality decorative products, e.g. jewelry
Advantages:
• Improved adhesion, grain structure and reduced porosity of the film
• Reduced electrical conductivity and reduced susceptibility to corrosion
• Improved effectiveness of the annealing process
• Greatly reduced thickness (can be elemental thin) of the gold deposit, due to the improved deposition quality, leading to potentially huge cost savings
• Can also be used to obtain alloy plating
• For large surfaces, proposed scanning laser can rapidly sweep the substrate performing in situ heating
Opportunities:
• Sponsored research funding for implementation of this invention into plating operation machines
• Licensing
Patent Status: Patent Pending"
Patent No. 8,496,799