Importance

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Abstract

The apparatus is for spot-facing for exposing an inner-layer conductor embedded in an insulator of a printed circuit board. The spot-facing removes the entire insulator by a mechanical cutter, except a remaining part thereof, to a position just above the inner-layer conductor. The remaining part of the insulator is smaller in thickness than the insulator removed by the mechanical cutter. Then, the remaining part of the insulator is removed by scanning the part with a laser beam to expose the inner-layer conductor. The laser beam is in a slender (elongated) shape almost perpendicular to the scanning direction of the laser beam and has an almost uniform energy density along the slender shape. Cutter processing is sufficient to be done before the inner-layer conductor, and there is no fear of damaging the inner-layer conductor. Moreover, it is easy to control thermal influence on the portion of the circuit board to be processed by the laser beam, because the energy density of the laser beam is almost uniform. Therefore, the product yield according to the processing is improved.

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First Claim