• Clean Technology
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.84-89
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• 2013

The running blots between patterns during electroless nickel electroless palladium immersion gold (ENEPIG) surface finish of printed circuit board (PCB) are investigated and a proper solution is presented. Computational chemistry is first employed to understand the process and experiments are then designed to verify the proposed ideas. A $PdCl_2$ activator which has relatively weak chemical bonding to the epoxy resin is introduced to prevent the formation of palladium seeds on the epoxy resin and a couple of operational measures such as increasing HCl concentration and lowering the temperature of Pd activation process are executed to prevent a further hydrolysis of $PdCl_2$ to more stable $Pd(OH)_2$ in aqueous solution. Computational chemistry provides thermodynamic backgrounds for experiments and their results. This combined approach is expected to be very useful in the research of relevant processes.