Abstract: Thin layers of aluminum and palladium are deposited and annealed to produce aluminum-palladium alloy. The surface of the alloy is exposed and treated with an aluminum enchant to produce a catalytic surface. The catalytic surface is used for electroless plating of nickel, providing excellent plating uniformity and adhesion, as well as a reduced plating induction time. Several variants of the basic method are shown.

Abstract: A photoresist (18) is exposed through a design-independent high resolution reticle (20), producing a high resolution image of exposed resist (18A). Photoresist (18) is exposed for the second time through a design-specific low-resolution reticle (24), exposing selected portions (18D) of previously unexposed resist. The remaining portions (18B) of previously unexposed resist form a design-dependent high resolution image. After development of photoresist (18), its unexposed portions (18B) are removed, producing openings (26) in photoresist (18), that can be transferred to underlying material (36), for example by etching openings in that underlying material (36), thereby transferring the design-dependent high-resolution image to it. Since the design-independent high resolution reticle (20) can be prefabricated ahead of time and used to produce many designs with different functions, the above double-exposure method is suitable for fabricating design-specific high resolution features, e.g.

Abstract: Thin layers of aluminum (13) and palladium (12) are deposited and annealed to produce aluminum-palladium alloy (14). The surface of the alloy (14) is exposed and treated with an aluminum etchant to produce a catalytic surface (15). The catalytic surface is used for electroless plating of nickel, providing excellent plating uniformity and adhesion, as well as a reduced plating induction time. Several variants of the basic method are possible.