In another form of barrel plating operation, the parts lie at the bottom of an open cup-shaped tub rotatable about an axis at about 45o to the horizontal. There is a negative contact sited centrally in the base, and an anode is hung above the parts. The tub is filled with plating solution and rotated. For removal, the contents are dumped out through a sieve. Barrel plating does not produce such satisfactory deposits as tank plating, for the action on any one parts is at best intermittent and some parts may receive an inordinately thin deposit.
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Driven by the need for increased speed, portability and wiring density, the interconnect pitch on semiconductor packages, and the corresponding high density interconnect (HDI) substrates, continue to shrink. The combination of filled blind microvias and build-up technology provides a means to achieve the required wiring densities. With the rapid growth of this technology, the use of electrodeposited copper for filling blind microvias has become a widely adopted process for manufacture of both HDI printed circuit boards (PCBs) and also semiconductor package substrates.
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The development of modern continuous sheet galvanizing lines has led to the disappearance of most of the old manual mills for galvanizing cut sheets. There are however still some machines that galvanize cut-to-length sheets; they use chemical pretreatment sequence similar to those for wire or tube galvanizing.
At the beginning of the line, the end of one coil is welded to the start of the next coil. Then there are two basic methods for continuously galvanizing sheet which differ in the way that the strip is cleaned before galvanizing-chemically or by thermal treatments. Coils of annealed cold reduced sheet may be fed directly to the galvanizing line, or alternatively, coiled sheet is continuously heat treated in the pretreatment line. After leaving the galvanizing bath, in which strip only stays for a few seconds, the surface is wiped to remove excess zinc and may be further treated to after the surface appearance, composition, smoothness or mechanical properties.
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Commercial Electroplating
1. Electroplating is the process of placing a coat of metal on a substrate. Although small applications of electroplating can be used in home workshop or hobby applications, most electroplating is achieved in commercial settings. This has much to do with the size of objects or substrates being electroplated, the size and cost of the machinery needed to fulfill orders from customers and the need for space to accommodate electroplating processes. When the object being electroplated is supplied to the electroplate company 1 million at a time, an additional parameter for volume increases the space needed to complete the business of electroplating.
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Updating its DOS-based software, the company introduces DynaComm II, a 32-bit, Windows-based software that operates under any of the current platforms available (95/98/NT/CE). Employing either the simple point-and-click or touch-screen technology common for Windows applications, DynaComm II provides an electroplating process control program for the PRO-Series and DC rectifiers.
This program consists of an Operator Interface (OI) for parameter entry and display and a Control Server (CS) to control and monitor the rectifiers. These two applications use a Windows socket connection to interchange data using the Internet protocol. This two-part design allows DynaComm II to be installed on a single computer for a stand alone application or to be installed on separate computers where the operator’s and rectifier’s positions can be separated by feet or miles.
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