Patent ID: 9301397
Filing Date: 2016-03-29
CPC Classification: C02F,C23F,H05K

Claim Text:
1. A method of patterning a substrate comprising: providing a substrate comprising a continuous web having a metalized surface having an etch resist patterned region and an unpatterned region; passing the substrate web through a reaction vessel, wherein the reaction vessel comprisesan etchant bath comprising an oxidizing agent and a metal complexing agent; wet etching the substrate web within the reaction vessel by contacting the metalized surface with the oxidizing and metal complexing agents to remove metal from the unpatterned region; after wet etching the substrate: (i) rinsing the wet etched substrate with a first rinse of water; (ii) collecting the rinse; (iii) recycling at least a portion of the collected rinse to the etchant bath; maintaining the concentrations of the oxidizing and metal complexing agents in the etchant bath by delivering a replenishment feed of each of the oxidizing and metal complexing agents to the etchant bath at a first replenishment feed rate and a second replenishment feed rate, respectively; and maintaining the concentration of the metal in the etchant bath by discharging an amount of the etchant bath from the reaction vessel at an etchant bath removal rate; wherein the first and second replenishment feed rates and the etchant bath removal rate are determined based at least in part on a rate that metal etched from the substrate enters the etchant bath.