Equipment-related advances in the fabrication of glass-ceramic/copper/polyimide substrates

This paper pertains to the equipment used to produce the multilayer glass-ceramic/copper/polyimide substrates of the thermal conduction modules (TCMs) used in the IBM Enterprise System/9000™ water-cooled processors. Discussed are a flexible equipment concept applied to the punching, inspection, and testing of the glass-ceramic/copper portion of the substrates, and laser-based equipment for ablation and repair of their polyimide/copper thin-film portion.