Micro-EDM-assisted machining micro-holes in printed circuit board

Printed circuit board (PCB) can provide assembly support and electrical connection for components in electronic systems. The machining of micro-holes in PCB is a necessary process and key step for its application in electronic components. Therefore, micro-holes are the key structures of PCB. At present, high-speed drilling based on micro-bit is the key supporting technology for machining PCB micro-holes. However, when the copper foil layer in PCB is machined by this technology, the micro-holes are prone to defects such as hole mouth burr and hole nail head, which could seriously affect the performance of PCB. Focusing on the above problems, this paper proposed to use micro electro-discharge machining (micro-EDM) for assisted machining of PCB micro-holes. With this method, the copper foil layer in PCB was machined by micro-EDM, so as to remove hole mouth burr and hole nail head. The paper detailedly studied the influence of micro-EDM voltage, pulse width and pulse interval on hole mouth burr and hole nail head. Finally, under the effects of 10,000 rpm rotational speed, 40 V voltage, 80 ns pulse width and 160 ns pulse interval, the micro-bit with diameter of 200 μm was used to carry out micro-EDM-assisted machining of the copper foil in PCB. From the machining results, it can be found that the hole mouth burr and the hole nail head were basically eliminated and PCB micro-holes with good quality were obtained by the proposed method.