Composite solder balls metallised on the surface and calibrated for the assembly of electronic boards

1. A method for manufacturing composite solder balls metallized on a surface and calibrated, of diameter D f , said composite solder balls comprising:

a core consisting of a spherical support particle of diameter D 0 , made of expanded polystyrene (EPS) and having an intergranular porosity of at least 50%, and

a shell that covers said support particle and is formed by a plurality of metallic surface layers, comprising a copper coating of thickness E cu , at least one nickel layer of thickness E Ni , and a gold top coat of thickness E AU , said method comprising:

providing support particles, followed by:

granulometric sorting of the support particles consisting of physical and/or mechanical separation of the support particles having a diameter D 0 such that D 0 =D f −2*(E Ni +E cu +E Au ), wherein D 0 is between 200 μm and 1000 μm;

activating treatment of the support particles thus selected to obtain activated support particles;

metallizing said activated support particles by means of autocatalytic chemical deposition of one or more layers of copper, and repeating metallizing until a copper coating of thickness E cu of copper of between 15 and 30 μm to obtain copper-coated support particles;

metallizing the copper-coated support particles by means of autocatalytic chemical deposition of at least one layer of nickel alloyed with phosphorous NiP having a mass percentage of from 7 to 10% phosphorous with respect to the total weight of said layer of NiP, performing until a thickness ENi of the layer of chemical nickel of between 4 μm and 7 μm is obtained, to obtain support particles coated with chemical nickel;

metallizing the support particles coated in chemical nickel consisting of depositing gold by means of a method of galvanic displacement implemented by immersion in an aqueous solution containing gold ions, to obtain composite solder balls metallized and coated on the surface with a gold top coat of a thickness E AU of between 0.05 μm and 0.12 μm; and

granulometric sorting the metallized particles in order to sort and select composite solder balls metallized on the surface and have a diameter D f , at a tolerance of +/−5%.

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the granulometric sorting of the support particles consists in mechanical sieving to sort and select the support particles having a diameter D 0 between 200 μm and 1000 μm.

3. The method according to claim 2 , wherein the granulometric sorting of the support particles is followed by heat treatment at a temperature of between 100° C. and 120° C., of the top portion of the particles thus treated, the size of which is greater than D 0 +5%.

4. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the activation treatment of the support particles consists in depositing silver seeds on the surface thereof, by means of introduction into a bath of silver nitrate, or by depositing, on the surface thereof, a thin layer of copper of less than or equal to 1 μm, by means of physical vapor deposition (PVD).

5. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising, between metallizing said activated support particles and metallizing the copper-coated support particles, partially or totally dissolving the expanded polystyrene (EPS) of the support particles, or partially or totally thermally decomposing the expanded polystyrene (EPS) of the support particles.

6. An electronic board comprising composite solder balls metallized on the surface and calibrated, of diameter D f , obtained by the method of claim 1 .