The present invention relates to a method for monitoring the total amount of sulphur containing compounds in a metal or metal alloy plating bath, wherein the sulphur containing compounds contain at least one sulphur atom having an oxidation state below +6, the method comprising the steps (a), (b), optionally (c), and (d). Said method is a means of providing control over a metal plating process. Thus, the present invention relates furthermore to a controlled process for plating a metal on a substrate utilizing the method of the present invention for monitoring the total amount of said sulphur containing compounds.

The present invention is directed to compositions for electroless plating baths and their use, and more particularly to different solutions each usable to both make up an original bath and to replenishment of the original bath.

The present invention is directed to compositions for electroless plating baths and their use, and more particularly to different solutions or concentrates each usable to both make up an original bath and to replenishment of the original bath.

An object of the present invention is to provide an electroless plating bath having excellent property in plating film deposition without containing halides such as chloride in the electroless plating bath. A halogen.sup.-free electroless plating bath of the present invention comprising: a water soluble platinum compound or a water soluble palladium compound, and a reducing agent wherein the water soluble platinum compound is a tetraammine platinum (II) complex salt excluding a halide of the tetraammine platinum (II) complex salt, the water soluble palladium compound is a tetraammine palladium (II) complex salt excluding a halide of the tetraammine palladium (II) complex salt and tetraammine palladium (II) sulfate, the reducing agent is formic acid or its salts, and the electroless plating bath contains no halide as an additive,

A method of performing electroless electrochemical atomic layer deposition is provided and includes: providing a substrate including an exposed upper metal layer; exposing the substrate to a first precursor solution to create a sacrificial metal monolayer on the exposed upper metal layer via underpotential deposition, where the first precursor solution is an aqueous solution including a reducing agent; subsequent to the forming of the sacrificial metal monolayer, rinsing the substrate; subsequent to the rinsing of the substrate, exposing the substrate to a second precursor solution to replace the sacrificial metal monolayer with a first deposition layer; and subsequent to replacing the sacrificial metal monolayer with the first deposition layer, rinsing the substrate. The exposure of the substrate to the first precursor solution and the exposure of the substrate to the second precursor solution are electroless processes.

An oxygen-free or oxygen-poor solution for the electroless deposition of a platinum group metal is described. The solution includes a ruthenium (II) amine complex having a first oxidation potential, and a platinum group metal compound having a reduction potential larger than the opposite of the oxidation potential of the ruthenium (II) amine complex.

A silver-coated particle (P1) is provided. The silver-coated particle (P1) includes a core particle (2) made of a resin particle or an inorganic particle and a silver coating layer (1) formed on a surface of the core particle (2), wherein, an amount of silver contained in the silver coating layer (1) is 5 to 90 parts by mass with respect to 100 parts of the silver-coated particle (P1), a crystallite diameter of the silver, which is calculated from a diffraction line obtained by filling a sample holder belonging to an X-ray diffraction apparatus with the silver-coated particle (P1); and irradiating X-ray in a range of 2/=30 to 120 deg., is in a range of 35 nm to 200 nm.

Provided is a semiconductor element including: a front-back conduction-type substrate including a front-side electrode and a back-side electrode; and an electroless plating layer formed on at least one of the electrodes of the front-back conduction-type substrate. The electroless plating layer includes: an electroless nickel-phosphorus plating layer; and an electroless gold plating layer formed on the electroless nickel-phosphorus plating layer, and has a plurality of recesses formed on a surface thereof to be joined with solder.

The invention relates to an aqueous plating bath composition and a method for depositing a palladium layer by electroless plating onto a substrate. The aqueous plating bath composition according to the invention comprises a source for palladium ions, a reducing agent for palladium ions and an unsaturated compound. The aqueous plating bath composition according to the invention has an improved stability against undesired decomposition due to the unsaturated compounds while keeping the deposition rate for palladium at the desired satisfying value. The aqueous plating bath composition has also a prolonged life time. The unsaturated compounds of the invention allow for adjusting the deposition rate to a satisfying range over the bath life time and for electrolessly depositing palladium layers at lower temperatures.

Methods of refreshing plating solutions containing phosphate anions, refreshed plating solutions, and uses thereof are described. The method may include adding a metal sulfate to the plating solution; precipitating out phosphate anions present in the plating solution with metal ions from the metal sulfate; adding barium carbonate to the plating solution; precipitating sulfate introduced from the metal sulfate added to the plating solution with barium from the barium carbonate; separating insoluble components from the plating solution; and replenishing the plating solution with components originally present in the plating solution.