Hello, There are multiple reasons for this to happen. I'll try to outline a few. NOTE: It would help a lot if you could supply detailed information about your process and it's environment. - 100 PPM of copper in solution in h2so4 pre-dip is nothing to be concerned about. Copper, in this case is not contamination since you are entering a copper plating bath. We dump our pre-dip bath at 500 PPM to give you an example. - Improper plating additive control is often the root cause for this. Too low brightner concentration may exhibit some copper growth at higher current density area. If you have a CVS or CPVS, you should determine with your supplier the brightner, carrier and leveler (If applicable) concentration and correct if necessary. - We have seen some photoresist to be incompatible with some plating additive systems causing plating roughness. (This is unusual but not impossible) - Organic contamination may be too high. Run TOC (Total Organic Content) and determine with your plating additive supplier if the obtained value is acceptable. TOC is not an absolute contamination measurement method. There is organic in the bath which have some desirable effects and some others which have undesirable effects. HPLC may be used to trace some of them. - Can you evaluate the copper grain structure at 1000x. You should see a very fine grain structure. If the grain structure is gross, organic or inorganic contamination may be present and/or current density too high and/or improper additive concentration. - Have a metallic contamination analysis performed; (Iron, Antimony, Tin, Bismuth etc...) - Have you tried to plate from a freshly carbon treated bath ? Hope this will help you, Good Luck, Charles Desroches Technical Advisor Viasystems Canada inc. (Granby) Voice: (514) 372-8111 ext: 2257 Fax: (514) 3788-5110 > ---------- > From: Padmanabha Anandapuram Halappa[SMTP:[log in to unmask]] > Reply To: TechNet E-Mail Forum.;[log in to unmask] > Sent: Thursday, March 05, 1998 2:19 PM > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: [TN] Grainy copper deposit. > > dear technet plating engineers, > need to know how to overcome grainy copper deposit & dendrite > copper > growth in acid copper plating.Dendrite grows at track edge & > shorts > with neighbouring track. > Does acid dip before copper plating with copper contamination > about > 100 ppm can cause this. > thanks. > > ################################################################ > TechNet E-Mail Forum provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV > 1.8c > ################################################################ > To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with > following text in the body: > To subscribe: SUBSCRIBE TechNet <your full name> > To unsubscribe: SIGNOFF TechNet > ################################################################ > Please visit IPC web site (http://jefry.ipc.org/forum.htm) for > additional information. > For the technical support contact Dmitriy Sklyar at [log in to unmask] or > 847-509-9700 ext.311 > ################################################################ > ################################################################ TechNet E-Mail Forum provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c ################################################################ To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the body: To subscribe: SUBSCRIBE TechNet <your full name> To unsubscribe: SIGNOFF TechNet ################################################################ Please visit IPC web site (http://jefry.ipc.org/forum.htm) for additional information. For the technical support contact Dmitriy Sklyar at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.311 ################################################################