Abstract: A process for monitoring an electroless plating bath to determine whether it is in a take mode by electrolessly depositing a film of the metal of the plating bath onto a substrate to provide a preplated cathode; providing the cathode, a reference electrode, and an anode in the electroless bath; passing an electric current and varying the voltage difference, plotting the voltage difference versus the current; and comparing the oxidation peak of the reducing agent to the oxidation peak of the reduced state of the metal ion to be plated to thereby determine whether the bath is in a take mode.

Abstract: Method for electroless plating metals, such as copper, onto non-conductive substrate surfaces. The method comprises bringing the surfaces into contact with an aqueous composition containing H.sub.2 SO.sub.4 and a multifunctional cationic copolymer containing at least two available cationic moieties and then activating the surfaces by treating them with a colloidal solution containing palladium chloride, stannous chloride and HCl.The inventive method is particularly useful in processes for producing metal circuits on substrates of glass, thermoplastics and thermosetting resins, such as epoxy cards and boards. The method is also applied in reworking substrates having already undergone copper plating and having been rejected due to failures.

Abstract: An electroless copper plating bath which is in the take mode is provided by determining the amount in the bath of at least four of the components selected from the group of oxygen, reducing agent, cyanide salt, cupric salt, and complexing agent; solving the equation:R=(CABD)/Ewherin C is the concentration of cupric salt, A is the concentration of reducing agent, B is the concentration of oxygen, D is the concentration of cyanide salt, E is the concentration of complexing agent, and R is a unitless number.The bath is provided with quantities of the above ingredients so that R in the equation is between about 5 and about 15.

Abstract: Multistep process for electroless plating of copper onto a non-conductive surface including the steps of: (1) laminating a rough copper sheet onto the non-conductive surface; (2) etching away all the copper; (3) conditioning the surface with multifunctional positively charged molecules derived from copolymers of polyacrylamide and functionally active tetraalkylammonium compounds in an diluted inorganic acid; (4) activating the conditioned surface preferably with stannous/palladium chloride particles; (5) treating the activated surface with deionized water and diluted HCl; (6) applying a photoresist layer to the surface and selectively exposing and developing the photoresist to produce a mask corresponding to the negative of the desired circuit pattern; and (7) plating copper using successively two baths differing in their oxygen and CN.sup.- concentration, where the foregoing steps are interspersed with washing steps.