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  Designing a plated pattern in printed wiring boardUSPTO Application #: 20070202246Title: Designing a plated pattern in printed wiring board Abstract: The plating method comprises the steps of dividing a region, to be plated, into a group of mesh-like zones, measuring a plating area of each of the zones, comparing the measurement values of the plating areas and judging whether or not the plating area has any variance, and conducting a design change, on patterns contained in this zone, to eliminate the variance. (end of abstract) Agent: Staas & Halsey LLP - Washington, DC, US Inventor: Motoharu Nii USPTO Applicaton #: 20070202246 - Class: 427009000 (USPTO) Related Patent Categories: Coating Processes, Measuring, Testing, Or Indicating, Thickness Or Uniformity Of Thickness Determined The Patent Description & Claims data below is from USPTO Patent Application 20070202246. Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application is a divisional application of Ser. No. 10/261,939, filed Oct. 2, 2002, which claims priority of Japanese Patent Application No. 2002-025941, filed on Feb. 1, 2002, in the Japanese Patent Office, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein in their entirety by reference. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] 1. Field of the Invention [0003] This invention relates to a plating technology. More particularly, the invention relates to a method, and an apparatus, for controlling plating so as not to create variance in plating areas when a pattern-providing plating film is formed at a predetermined film thickness on a substrate, a control program and a recording medium that are used for such a control method and apparatus, and a plating method. As the invention can exactly control the plating area, based on such an exactly controlled plating area, the invention can appropriately assist a design change, such as feedback of design change to a designing department of patterns, and preconsideration of production conditions. Therefore, the invention can be used advantageously for producing printed wiring boards, in particular. [0004] 2. Description of the Related Art [0005] Generally speaking, a printed wiring board is produced through a series of steps of boring holes in a substrate comprising a copper-clad laminate board, sequentially applying electroless copper plating and electrolytic copper plating to form a conductor layer having a predetermined thickness on the entire surface of the board, and selectively etching away unnecessary portions of the conductor layer to form wiring or the like in a desired pattern. Because remarkable progress has been made in recent years in the higher density of printed wiring boards and their multi-layered construction and a higher operational speed of devices mounted onto the boards, improvement in and management of plating steps have become very important. For example, it has been desired to provide a plating method capable of easily coping with production of a variety of kinds of products in limited quantities and with frequent design changes. If plating areas have any variance, the plating thickness becomes small or large, so that electrical characteristics are deteriorated and a waste of materials occurs. Therefore, strict management of the plating steps inclusive of the plating area has become necessary. [0006] Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 56-64493, for example, discloses a production method, for a printed board, which uses a photo-mask to correct a circuit pattern width to cope with variance in the thickness of electric copper plating in an etching step carried out after chemical copper plating and electric copper plating in order to minimize variance in the copper plating thickness. Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 1-321308, now Patent No. 2593690, discloses a plating area measurement apparatus for a printed wiring board characterized in that means, for calculating a pattern area from given pattern data and means for calculating an inner area of each through-hole from boring data and sheet thickness data, calculate a plating area of a printed wiring board so as to omit an expensive and troublesome step that uses a negative film for an optical measuring instrument, when the plating area is measured, to keep the plating thickness constant. Further, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2001-123298 discloses an electrolytic plating method that determines in advance a relational formula between an electrode potential and a current density and determines, on the other hand, a current value and a potential value when a plating object is polarized in a plating bath, calculates a plating area of a plating object from the relational formula, the current value and the potential value and conducts plating to a predetermined thickness, so as to reduce a variance in a deposition film thickness of a plating metal. [0007] As described above, attempts have already been made to measure and control variance of the plating area to solve the problem of variance of the thickness of the plating film formed on the substrate for forming the pattern in the production of the printed wiring board according to the prior art. However, the prior art plating methods have employed only a method that optically scans the whole surface of one of the surface of the substrate and measures the plating area of the substrate as a whole. Therefore, this method cannot measure and adjust variance of the plating areas between top and back surfaces of the substrate. Thus, this method cannot sufficiently satisfy the recent technical progresses and requirements described above for the following reasons. If the plating area is different between a certain plating region and another when a plating film is considered as a single surface (single body) of the substrate, variance occurs in the plating thickness (when an additive method is used) or in an etching amount (when a subtractive method is used). Further, problems of planarity and warping of the substrate occur. When an insulating film is formed on or below the plating film, control of the film thickness of the insulating film becomes difficult, and insulating defects and connection defects occur due to a flow of the insulating resin. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION [0008] It is an object of the invention to provide a plating method that solves the problems of the prior art technologies described above, can easily cope with production of a variety of kinds of products in limited quantities and with frequent design changes, can moreover eliminate variance of plating areas and hence plating film thickness, and can solve the problems of planarity and warping of a substrate and the problems of film thickness control of an insulating film. [0009] It is another object of the invention to provide a control method of a plating area useful in the practice of the plating method described above. [0010] It is still another object of the invention to provide a control program for a plating area useful in the practice of the plating method described above. [0011] It is still another object of the invention to provide a recording medium useful in the practice of the plating method described above. [0012] It is still another object of the invention to provide a control apparatus of a plating area useful in the practice of the plating method described above. [0013] These and other objects of the invention will be easily understood from the following detailed explanation of the invention. [0014] According to one aspect of the invention, there is provided a control method for a plating area for preventing variance of plating areas when a pattern-providing plating film is formed at a predetermined thickness on a substrate, comprising the steps of: dividing a region, to be plated, of the substrate into a group of mesh-like zones, each having substantially the same area; measuring the plating area of each of the zones; comparing the measurement values of the plating areas and judging whether or not variance exists in the plating area in each of the zones; and conducting a design change of patterns contained in any of the zones to eliminate the variance when the variance of the plating area is judged as existing in the variance judgment step. [0015] According to another aspect of the invention, there is provided a program used in combination with a computer when a pattern-providing plating film is formed at a predetermined film thickness on a substrate, the program causing the computer to execute the steps of: dividing a region, to be plated, of the substrate into a group of mesh-like zones each having substantially the same area; measuring the plating area for each of the zones; comparing the measurement values of the plating areas and judging whether or not the plating area has variance in each of the zones; and conducting a design change of the patterns contained in any of the zones to eliminate the variance when the plating area is judged as having a variance in any of the zones in the variance judgment step. [0016] According to still another aspect of the invention, there is provided a computer-readable recording medium used in combination with a computer when a pattern-providing plating film is formed at a predetermined film thickness on a substrate, the recording medium storing a program for causing the computer to execute the steps of: dividing a region, to be plated, of the substrate into a group of mesh-like zones each having substantially the same area; measuring the plating area for each of the zones; comparing the measurement values of the plating areas and judging whether or not the plating area has variance in each of the zones; and conducting a design change of the patterns contained in any of the zones to eliminate the variance when the plating area is judged as having the variance in any of the zones in the variance judgment step. [0017] According to still another aspect of the invention, there is provided an apparatus for preventing variance of plating areas when a pattern-providing plating film is formed at a predetermined film thickness on a substrate, comprising: a plating region-division unit for dividing a region, to be plated, of the substrate into a group of mesh-like zones each having substantially the same area; an area measurement unit for measuring the plating area for each of the zones; a variance judgment unit for comparing the measurement values of the plating areas and judging whether or not variance exists in the plating area of each of the zones; and a pattern design-changing unit for conducting a design change of patterns contained in any of the zones to eliminate the variance when the plating area is judged as having a variance in any of the zones by the variance judgment unit. [0018] According to still another aspect of the invention, there is provided a plating method for forming a pattern-providing plating film at a predetermined film thickness on a substrate, comprising the steps of: dividing a region, to be plated, of the substrate into a group of mesh-like zones each having substantially the same area; measuring the plating area for each of the zones; comparing the measurement values of the plating areas and judging whether or not the plating area has variance in each of the zones; conducting a design change of the patterns contained in any of the zones to eliminate variance when the plating area is judged as having a variance in any of the zones in the variance judgment step; and subjecting the substrate to a plating step under the condition where the plating areas do not substantially have the variance in all of the zones. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS [0019] FIG. 1 is a plan view showing an example of a printed wiring board used in the practice the invention; [0020] FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing an example of a plating area control method according to the invention; Continue reading... Full patent description for Designing a plated pattern in printed wiring board Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims Click on the above for other options relating to this Designing a plated pattern in printed wiring board patent application. ###  How KEYWORD MONITOR works... a FREE service from FreshPatents1. Sign up (takes 30 seconds). 2. Fill in the keywords to be monitored. 3. Each week you receive an email with patent applications related to your keywords. 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