Multiresponse optimization of surface plasma treatment using Taguchi method

Emerging plasma treatment on printed circuit boards has many applications from desmearing to micro/nanomanipulating of surface chemistry. However, the methodology to predict their mechanism behaviors and quantify their process performance is hampered by the fact that each plasma treatment response is very sensitive to a small change in a technologic parameter, undesirably causing detrimental effect on the overall response. This study thus uses Taguchi's parameter design to identify the essential technologic parameters affecting the plasma treatment performance. The factor combinations for process performance optimization are observed to be intrinsically distinct for different polymer substrates. The optimal level correlation between responses and control factors is established by means of signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio. The analysis of variance is employed to identify the priority of factor influence. Finally, both predicted and experimental results are compared to determine the efficacy of using the proposed methodology to optimize the surface plasma treatment process.