A Large Format Modified TEA CO/sub 2/ Laser Based Process for Cost Effective Small Via Generation

Recently, a Transverse Excited Atmospheric (TEA) CO/sub 2/ laser technology has been developed-for the micro-machining of Was in non-reinforced glass laminates. This system has been designed to accommodate the large panel sizes associated with PW8 processing. The salient features of this modified CO/sub 2/ laser technology are summarized. A joint Lumonics / Motorola study was carried out to assess the applicability of this laser processing technology for use in higher density PWB and MCM-L substrate processing and its compatibility with currently available classes of dielectrics currently used in high density interconnect applications. A lox improvement in cycle time / throughput over our existing raster scanning laser ablation process has been demonstrated.