laser direct imaging (LDI) system solutions for various PCB Multilayer

Traditional photolithography imaging process requires multiple steps to create the photo tool used to generate the image on the PCB. This has generated a number or challenges for PCB fabricators over the years. LDI provides a number of advantages:

• Quality: Photo film issues in the past have resulted in imperfect images due to inherent susceptibility to fluctuations in temperature or humidity. Laser imaging result in much more precision and consistent imaging, and eliminate any film-related defects.
• Laser imaging provides precision positioning and improved resolution. Image trace widths, spaces, and alignment are more accurate.
• Photo methodology requires temperature- and humidity-controlled environments to provide the most accurate transfer of images to boards. LDI reduces the impact of environment on the resulting images, and removes the impact of light reflection inherent with photo processing techniques.

In order to be used in HDI board production, an LDI system should have the following capabilities:

• High quality exposure of fine lines and spaces down to at least 0.075mm (4mil) and below of possible.
• Good depth of focus ensuring imaging quality for high topography design. This is especially needed for uniform exposure of outer layers and Sequential Build Up (SBU)
• A system design that can accommodate various product types, materials, thicknesses, manufacturing technologies and fabrication process.
• A flexible, highly accurate registration system compatible with different manufacturing technologies and production steps.
• An ability to compensate dynamically for material dimension changes in order to overcome variance in panels form the same batch and to be able to achieve tight registration tolerance over the whole area of PCB panels.

PCB laser direct imaging (LDI)
When fabricating a circuit board, the circuit traces are defined by what is the imaging process. Laser direct imaging ( LDI ) exposes the traces directly with a highly focused laser beam that in NC controlled, instead of flooded light passing through a photo tool, a laser beam will digitally create the image.

How does laser direct imaging ( LDI ) work?
Laser direct imaging needs a PCB with the photo-sensitive surface that is positioned under a computer controlled laser. And then the computer is creating the image on the board with the light of laser. A computer scans the board surface into a raster image, matching the raster image to a pre-loaded CAD or CAM design file that includes the specifications for the necessary image intended for the board, the laser is used for directly creating the image on the board.

About us
We are an innovative supplier of various PCB laser direct imaging (LDI) system solutions. Our system product portfolio ranges from LDI system configurations for high-mix and emerging PCB niche applications to fully automated LDI system solutions for mass production environments.