Effect of Electroplating Current on Surface Morphology and Thickness of Plated-Through Hole (PTH) in Multilayer Printed Circuit Board (PCB)

Multilayer printed circuit board (PCB) consists of many layers in PCB. In order to connect one layer to other layers is needed plated-through-hole (PTH). PTH is commonly formed from the copper metal using some methods such as electroplating or electroless plating. Electroplating is method which there is adhering process the copper metal using the electrical current. This method is easy and cheap in PCB manufacture. One of the important part of electroplating result is surface morphology and thickness of PTH in multilayer PCB. The objective of this study is to im the electroplating current in electroplating process to learn more about the effect of electroplating current against the surface morphology and thickness of PTH.. The electroplating current applied in this experiment is at 5 A, 10 A, 15 A, and 20 A. In this research is also used Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy (EDS) to characterize the formed PTH in multilayer PCB. The results shows that the PTH was successfully formed in through hole of multilayer PCB. The thickest PTH is about 37.8 μm for the applied current 20A and the smoothest morphology of PTH cross section is at the electroplating current 15 A.