A new substrate-based additive fabrication technique eliminates the sloping caused during traditional chemical etching, which results in performance variations and yield issues. The technique creates substrate-based, ultraminiaturized circuits with properties that include circuit lines and spaces as small as 10 μm, vias as small as 25 μm in diameter, plated through-holes to ground with “metal-backed” ceramics, and multilayer devices with up to six metal layers.
The process defines circuit lines by electroplating or sputtering metal traces onto either a rigid substrate in a single layer device or onto a polyimide layer in a multilayer device for extreme uniformity in geometries as well as the ability to deposit exactly the desired amount of metal in exactly the desired location.
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