Dear all

Do you have any experience about electroplating of NiP or Ni. Now I am
trying to plate NiP into the lithographed AZ P4620 pattern on Si Wafer.
There is metallic  seed layer with thickness of around 200 nm. Which is
cosputtered CuZr layer, I need its high hardness. I found that it has
resistivity almost same as sputtered Cu. I found the growing rate is too
low (Around 1 um for 5 hours). The even worse thing is some
abnormal-growth-islands break the patterned photo resist and spend most
of the current. My current density is about 10-24 mA/cm2 and the
temperature is 50 or 70 Degree C.

For the worst cases, the whole patterned area totally peels off after
few hours plating.

I did not use hard bake after developing of the pattern as some
colleagues believe it may cause the deformation of the pattern via
reflow.

Any suggestions and comments will be highly appreciated.

Best regards!

Dr. Zhang XiaoQiang

Department of Materials Science and Engineering
National University of Singapore