Last year we made one of the group’s largest investments by installing the Ledia direct imaging system in our plant in Eger – Hungary. We can use Ledia to expose inner layers, outer layers and Soldermask as well. With the Ledia we can produce PCB’s with tighter tolerances on images and Soldermask.

To better optimise all advantages that Direct Imaging of the Soldermask with the Ledia has to offer, we needed to change the Soldermask to another type. Still from the same supplier, Sun Chemicals, XV501T DI is better suited for the Ledia’s imaging process.

With this new, professional and reliable Soldermask, we can expose our production panels faster than with the previous type. In combination with Direct Imaging, we can also achieve much better results on registration accuracy.

The surface of the new Soldermask is perfect for soldering. The matt finish helps with the alignment for placing components and it is better suited for automatic optical inspection after soldering. We are convinced that this Soldermask is a modern and user-friendly product.

  

We made lot’s of tests with the new Soldermask and all test results were very convincing. The many micro sections we have made, show that the thickness and coverage of the Soldermask are also very good. We measured at least 10 micron of Soldermask on the edges of the tracks.

The left picture shows the Soldermask we use in Eurocircuits Eger and the right picture shows the Soldermask of Eurocircuits Aachen.

 

In Eurocircuits Aachen we are using the sister product of the CAWS2708 LDI of Sun Chemical. The CAWN2295 used in Aachen has the same RAL colour of the one in Eger and has the same technical features. Nevertheless, there will be optical differences between the two because of the different application method. We use curtain coating in Germany and spray coating in Hungary.

The physical and chemical properties of both Soldermask types are the same after the curing process and both have very good electrical properties. Last but not least we can state that the new Soldermask has excellent characteristics for the adhesion to the copper surface.

To summarise we can conclude that the new Soldermask types we use in Eger and Aachen have better characteristics than what our customers were used to before although they might look a bit different than the previous types.