Microvias

Microvias are becoming more and more common in high density board designs of today. There are many benefits to laser drilling microvias, including real estate savings, impedance control, circuit reliability, and RF line termination. For this reason, MLT has developed microvia laser drilling processes to work with a very wide range of materials and via profiles to fit your designs that meet IPC standards.

MLT offers laser microvia drilling in both copper clad and unclad laminates. While we do recommend that outer layer foils be kept to half ounce or thinner for process efficiency, we are capable of handling much thicker copper cladding if your design calls for them.

Laminate Ipc

Please see our PCB Materials section for more information on the range of materials that MLT is capable of processing or give us a call if you want to discuss a particular application.

Microvia hole diameters are limited by aspect ratio (hole depth to hole diameter). As the hole depth exceeds the hole diameter, laser drilling quality can be affected. Please contact MLT for microvia size requirements that exceed a 1:1 aspect ratio.

CAD or Data Requirements

CAD system integration and custom file converters enable flexible, laser manufacturing from customer-provided data. Although most file types are accepted, the preferred file types for microvia drilling are Gerber, Excellon, DXF, or other 2D formats.

For more CAM/CAD guidelines and detailed requirements, click CAD Requirements.

Drilling and Machining Tolerances

Positional:+/- .001” over 12 inches
Dimensional:+/- .0005”
Hole Sizes:.001” and up in diameter
Panel Sizes:24” x 30” without custom fixturing

Dielectrics

  • FR4 all types
  • Hitachi
  • Soldermask
  • Isola
  • Gore
  • Rogers (Duroid & Teflon)
  • Getek
  • Taconic
  • Mitsubishi BT's
  • Nelco
  • Ceramics
  • ARLON CLTE
  • Reinforcements

    Woven Glass (106,1080,2216,2213,2313)

    Aramid (Thermount)

    Ceramic

    Non-woven glass

    PTFE

    Chemistries

    BCB (benzocyclobutene)

    Epoxy

    Cyanate ester

    PEEK (polyetheretherketone)

    Epoxy blends

    Polyimide

    FEP (fluorinated ethylene propylene)

    Polyester

    Acrylics

    LCP (Liquid Crystal Polymer)

    PPE (polyphenylene ether)

    BT resins

    Via Construction

    Blind – single and double deep

    Buried

    Stepped

    Staggered

    Stacked

    Through-hole