On Dec 27 T. Gaylor ask about research on sputtering copper into plated through holes. About 7 years ago we were trying to plate depth drilled blind vias. (.008" drill size, .010" deep). We try all types of vibration and "thumpers" on our electroless copper bath and could not get satisfactory results. We finally tried sputtering the copper in the holes. This worked very well and passed up to 400+ thermal cycles. Unfortunately, this was expensive (about $75 for an 12x18" panel). We had them done by Action Technologies in Colorado. Jay Schumacher was President of Action at the time. Also I believe Fasel Faslin of APS in Florida had a vertical conveyorized sputtering machine about the same time. It has been a while and I'm not as young as I used to be, but I think the above names and numbers are correct. An aside: While we were doing these experiments, I heard that someone in Japan (maybe Fujitsu or Hitachi) was working with electroless copper in a vacuum chamber. Does anyone currently do this successfully? David Arivett Cuplex Inc. *************************************************************************** * TechNet mail list is provided as a service by IPC using SmartList v3.05 * *************************************************************************** * To unsubscribe from this list at any time, send a message to: * * [log in to unmask] with <subject: unsubscribe> and no text. * *************************************************************************** * If you are having a problem with the IPC TechNet forum please contact * * Dmitriy Sklyar at 847-509-9700 ext. 311 or email at [log in to unmask] * ***************************************************************************