A Printed Circuit Board Exposure Device Design for Course Projects using LEDs

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1 A Printed Circuit Board xposure Device Design for Course Projects using LDs J. Chatzakis Abstract A low cost device for printed circuit board (PCB) exposure is presented. The device uses ultra violet (UV) light emitting diodes (LDs) and has significant advantages when compared to the conventional devices. The proposed device increases the resolution of the PCB, decreases the PCB exposure time and has higher efficiency. An experimental prototype was constructed and experimental results verify the theoretical expectations. Keywords LD, Printed Circuit Board, xposure Device I. INTRODUCTION LCTRONIC prototyping in universities and small companies almost always requires the construction of a printed circuit board (PCB) [1]. Today, it is easy to produce a high quality mask using a high resolution printer and obtain a photo-resist covered standard copper board (unused PCB) up A4 standard dimensions. The procedure is quite easy and usually involves the following steps: 1) xposure of the photo-resist through the mask using ultraviolet light. 2) Development of the photo-resist. 3) tching of the copper. 4) Removal of the photo-resist. Although the removal of the photo-resist can be easily achieved using alcohol, however the resist development and the copper etching use chemicals and are specialized procedures. ngineering laboratories usually do not have the equipment to control accurately the concentration and the temperature of the chemical solutions and this is one of the main reasons for errors in these procedures. The sensitivity on the chemical procedures also depends on how sharp the PCB image is applied to the resist during the resist exposure through the PCB artwork mask. As well as the mask quality and materials, the artwork transfer depends on the mask to copper contact, the illumination uniformity and the angle of incidence of the UV light onto the resist surface. In the laboratory, the artwork mask is usually a printer transparency. A good quality, laser printer transparency is usually sufficient for the production of the mask. The toner deposited onto the transparency surface J. Chatzakis is with the Department of lectronics, TI of Crete, Chania 73133, Crete, Greece ( [email protected]). allows for a good contact with the photo-resist and it has high absorption for all types of light. The problem of transparency stretch, caused by heating during the printing process is a problem for some types of transparencies and printers. This problem can have a significant effect on the production of some large and high density double layer PCBs. Furthermore, after some printing, the laser printer drum gets worn and can produce black lines and cuts to the artwork printing. For these reasons some people prefer to use inkjet printers to produce the artwork. Ink is not as opaque as toner and uses a much thicker layer inside the transparency to produce a quality artwork. This degrades the quality of the artwork transfer during the resist exposure since it is can affect more the angle of the incident UV light. A usual method for exposing photo-resist is an UV floodlight positioned a long distance from the PCB. This method has a low efficiency due to reflections and low light fluency and in addition, everything inside the exposure room will be exposed to the UV light. Using this method, it is difficult to expose simultaneously both layers of a double layer PCB. Many methods for exposing photo-resist exposure have been tested including the use of professional equipment. ven when using professional equipment there are problems such as the warm up time, the equipment cost, the chemicals procedures sensitivity that is caused by the use of printer transparencies under non vertical and non uniform UV light illumination. II. OPRATION PRINCIPL Recent advances in light emitting diode (LD) construction has enabled LDs to gradually become the preferred choice for many lightning applications [2]. As the production volume of the LDs has increased their price has reduced and so the cost is no longer an obstacle for their use. LDs have a lot of advantages in comparison to the conventional lighting methods: a) They can easily achieve any color temperature. b) They produce stable light almost instantaneously. c) They are solid-state (high reliability and vibration resistant). d) They can give light within a narrow viewing angle. e) They have longer life and higher efficiency than any other competitive light source (especially in violet and UV). ISBN:

2 In order to use LDs for photo-resist exposure it is necessary that light is emitted in the range between nm. A lot of constructors make LDs in the upper limit of the visible light between nm in competitive price [3]. These LDs are produced in large quantities and are intended for vivid car illumination. Their light emittance is suitable for the photo-resist exposure and has other advantages: a) A large part of their light is visible and the human eye reacts to it. b) The biological effects of their light are not far of those from the visible light. c) Normal glass has relatively low absorption in this wavelength. d) The viewing angle of through-hole LDs can be narrower than the 20. A problem that occurs with the low cost UV LDs is that they are non-uniform. The problem can be exacerbated if the LD is soldered very close to its body because heat transfer can affect the plastic case. During the development of the experimental prototype was apparent that the vertical incidence of the UV light immunizes sufficiently the photoresist despite the light intensity variations. Non uniform illumination and exposure time vary significantly without seriously affecting the exposure result. To verify this, a small demonstration was devised. A transparency with various Fig. 1 Sensitivity of the exposure to the angle from the vertical of the incident UV light parallel lines was printed using an inkjet printer and the transparency overlaid onto the photo-resist was over-exposed in several points with different angles of incidence using two LDs for each point. The results are illustrated in the photograph of Figure 1. This experiment, that tests how the angle of the incident UV light affects the exposure result, was not setup with high precision, but the results are very clear. A couple of narrow viewing angle LDs illuminates each square with a different angle, but with the same distance from the square. On the left of the figure, the angle from the vertical of each couple of LDs is denoted in degrees. The vertical UV light (on the top of the photograph) in high over-exposure passes from the low dense black ink but still does not affect significantly the thickness of the lines. As the angle from the vertical is increased the lines gradually get thinner and disappear. The line that remains visible is 15 mils wide on the transparency and all the other 10 mils. In order to design the optical system of the exposure device there are two parameters that have to be minimized: The maximum deflection from the vertical of the effective UV light and the non-uniformity of the illumination. In reference [2] the definition of the uniformity can be found: Uniformity min (1) max Where min and max are the minimum and the maximum light intensity respectively. The intensity is ideal uniform when Uniformity is equal to 1. The most convenient way to approximate this is to place the LDs is in a grid of squares that are defined by vertical and horizontal lines. This arrangement is in use for uniform illumination and it will be compared to LDs arranged on the vertices of equilateral triangles. For simplicity in all of the evaluations, LDs with angle of 30 O degrees are assumed, as these that are the type used on the prototype. The LD to LD distance is expressed as d and the design is made to achieve a uniform light in the line between two adjacent LDs. To achieve this in the middle of the line, the luminosity of each LD is assumed to be half the intensity of the direct, on-axis view. The half intensity angle is denoted and is equal to the one half of the LD viewing angle. In this configuration all the points of the perimeter of the geometrical shape defined by the LDs have about the same light intensity. The highest intensity variation and the lowest angle of incidence appear in the center of this geometrical shape. The contribution of all the other LDs is negligible and omitted since the emission angle where the area inside the geometrical shape is reached significant reduces the intensity. In practice, the LD non-uniformity also limits the need for a very accurate expression. For a square geometry we have d l and for an equilateral triangle we have d l 2 3 as the distance between a vertex and the center of the geometrical shape. The distance between the LD and the ISBN:

3 Fig. 2 Optical problem geometry illuminated surface has to be d z as is shown in 2 tan Figure 2. of the glass close to the triangle centers will correct the Uniformity and make it much more advantageous than that of the square LD array. The arrangement of the LDs in the equilateral triangular array configuration is shown in Fig. 3. There are lines with (N+1) LDs that are denoted by l e and lines with N-LDs each is denoted by l d. The board must be constructed wider The maximum useable angle of the system max can be calculated as 1 l max tan. The calculations give O for z the square and O for the equilateral triangle array configuration, for the given LDs. The Uniformity of the LD array at the center of each shape can be calculated. Since the LD source is assumed to be a Lambertian emitter with irradiance distributed according to a cosine function of the emitting angle. The irradiance distribution (W/m 2 ) is assumed to be given by: r, 0 rcos m, where ln2 m (2) ln cos In this case m is almost equal to 20. ach LD contributes and for the square and the triangular configuration respectively. For the square the four LDs give Uniformity = 0.96 and the three LDs for the triangular geometry give a Uniformity = As a result the equilateral triangle array has the desirable lower angle but poorer Uniformity that increases the resist exposure time. For the triangular geometry, if the distance between the LD and the illuminated surface is set at a distance d d with z max =19.9 O, each LD contributes 3 tan 2 tan max in the center of the equilateral triangle (1/3) 0 and better results can be achieved. The most intensive illumination is in front of each LD, the illuminated surface distance from the LDs is smaller than the previous cases and the maximum angle is still smaller from the case of the square LD array. The exposure time is equal to the square LD array system but the maximum angle is smaller and the whole construction is about 10% thinner. However, Uniformity is not improved, but in this case, the most intense points the UV light incidences almost vertical so they are a lot of intense tolerant. Since cheap mass produced UV LDs have inherent bad Uniformity it is important to keep max as small as possible in order to make the system tolerant to the exposure time. This configuration will also be favorable in the case of wide viewing angle LDs because the reflection and the absorption Fig. 3 Placement of the LDs in the equilateral triangle array configuration than an A4 PCB board. In order to cover the corners satisfactory the extreme top and bottom lines must have more LDs. In this case only the extreme left and right vertical lines must be out of the useful exposure area in order to prevent effects from the worst uniformity in the area between their LDs. In order to find the number of LDs required, the number of the excess LD lines has to be found. Let this number be K. To the longest dimension of the maximum PCB area the placement tolerance has to be added. If this sum is divided by K-1 the result represents the distance between two N+1 LD lines. From the Fig. 3 is apparent that if this number is divided by then the result is the distance between two adjacent LDs d. If the other dimension of the maximum PCB area will be divided by the distance between two adjacent LDs d the next bigger integer of this result is the number N. The total LD number that is needed to cover the one PCB side will be +1)+(-1). III. TH LCTRONIC CIRCUIT One of the biggest advantages of the proposed exposure device is its very low power consumption. This allows various electronics configurations to be considered. The electronic circuitry that was used on the prototype that is described here was chosen because of its simplicity and ease of construction. A lot of suitable solutions are available today. Voltage of the mains is rectified and an adequate number of LDs are connected in series driven from a current source. The basic configuration of the LD drive source circuit for a 230V AC system is shown in Fig. 4. The current applied from the current source is slightly ISBN:

4 lower than 30mA. ach UV LD has a forward voltage drop Fig. 4 The proposed basic configuration of the LD drive circuitry of 3.6V and the array of 73 LDs has a forward voltage drop of about 283V. This is enough low voltage for stable operation of the rectification filter even for the lower limit of the mains voltage specification. The BJT requires a small heatsink. For the case of a lower number of LDs in the array, the size of the heatsink will be affected. It is better to construct an individual drive to each of 73 LDs array because otherwise the faults of the one string will affect the current of the other strings. For some minutes of exposure it is not necessary, but it is very convenient, to have an Operation Control Timer (OCT) to control the illumination circuit. The prototype is equipped output signal has been placed on P3.5. This signal can control the contact of a relay. An in-circuit programming circuit, that allows the microprocessor to be programmed from a personal computer serial port, has been also added. The clock of the microcontroller has been set to MHz for low power operation and to support the in-circuit programming function. The code of the microcontroller is simple and is based on the use of interrupts. The three timers of the DS89C420 are flexible and more capable than those of the standard One of them is responsible for controlling the display multiplexing. It produces an interrupt at less than 10msec (higher than 100Hz frequency). The interrupt reads the current digit number from a variable, and reads the respective display value from another variable. A look-up table converts the value from binary to 7-segment and outputs this to the respective display digit. The current digit number is set to the next digit and the interrupt is ended. ach digit flashes faster than 33Hz and this is fast enough for the human eye. Another interrupt is responsible for the time base for the OCT countdown. For the used operating clock none of the microprocessor timers can produce interrupts at 1 sec. The respective timer is set to produce interrupts with a higher frequency, e.g. 100Hz, and the frequency is divided using a dedicated variable and some code. Care must be taken when interrupts are disabled inside the code, so as not to exceed the multiplexing interrupt time. This can produce temporary display errors. IV. TH XPRIMNTAL PROTOTYP In order to verify the possibilities of the proposed methodology a prototype was constructed. The case of a Fig. 5 The OCT (operation control timer) block diagram. with a specially designed OCT. The OCT is electrically isolated from the other circuit in order to enhance the user protection. The OCT is preloaded with the typical exposure time so that the whole procedure usually requires only a single button press. Two more buttons, with fast moving capability -if kept pressed- allow the user to add or subtract time to the OCT. A fourth reset button loads the default time value again to the OCT. The prototype OCT was based on DS89C420. The block diagram of the OCT is shown in Figure 5. The display is multiplexed on port 2 and a part of the port 0 is used for the digit selection. The four push buttons use a respective number of active low interrupts and the OCT Fig. 6 The experimental prototype. flatbed scanner found to be a useful enclosure for such an exposure device. For the base, a case of a scanner equipped ISBN:

5 with buttons was modified to take in the OCT. For the top an old flatbed SCSI scanner was used. These old scanners have sufficient depth and provide high flexibility for the design. The glass of both scanners is removed and placed in the outer side of their case. This way the glass of each scanner presses the corresponding side transparency on the photosensitive PCB side. Guides were also made in order to center both the exposure surfaces when the cases are placed one over the other. A photo of the experimental prototype is demonstrated in Figure 6. The prototype uses 218 LDs with viewing angle of 30 O degrees for each side. These are cheap Chinese made LDs with a typical luminous intensity of about 2000mcd at a continuous current of 30mA. The first observation was that these LDs have a high non-uniformity. This problem is worse when they are soldered close to their body, probably because of the plastic of their case that is very sensitive to the temperature. Despite this, the experimental results were successful even in the case of very high detail PCBs that were using SMDs (Surface Mounded Devices). This was due to the fact that the incident UV light is very close to the vertical and it immunizes the exposure result from the transparency dense, the photoresist thickness, and the variations of the exposure time and intensity. The top side case was sufficiently high to allow the examination of the device sensitivity to the construction tolerance. The distance between the LDs and the exposure surface affects the illumination uniformity but without a noticeable difference in the result. The exposure times were about 2 minutes for the experimental prototype and for good quality printed laser-printer transparencies times up to 10 minutes were used without problems. The power consumption is estimated to be less than 70W. The device is lightweight, does not need pre-heating and it has obvious advantageous when compared with other non-ld devices. [2] Allen Jong-Woei Whang, Yi-Yung Chen, and Yuan-Ting Teng, Designing Uniform Illumination Systems by Surface-Tailored Lens and Configurations of LD Arrays, J. Display Technol. 5, 2009, pp [3] Chen-Kang Huang, Jeng-Gang Sung, The application of UV-LDs to printed circuit board process, Microsystems, Packaging, Assembly and Circuits Technology Conference, 2009, pp V. CONCLUSION A methodology for the construction of a LD based PCB exposure device has been presented in this paper. The methodology produces a thin device that incorporates narrow viewing angle LDs, but can also give better uniformity if wide angle LDs are implemented. LDs are very advantageous for such applications because they are efficient, do not need preheating and are solid-state. Also their light can be very close to visible light and so it can be safer in case of accidental exposure of humans in their light. Using the proposed methodology a low cost, lightweight, small and convenient exposure device can be easily constructed for course projects or prototyping. RFRNCS [1] Scott Baldwin, A Successful Process Approach To lectronic Device Design, Proceedings of the 2001 American Society for ngineering ducation Annual Conference & xposition, Session 2425, ISBN: