Patent ID: 7820363

Claim:
A process for forming a solder mask comprising: coating a liquid photoimageable ink on a carrier film to form a liquid photoimageable ink layer on said carrier film; drying said liquid photoimageable ink layer to form a photoimageable resist layer comprising a plurality of separate photoimageable resist layer portions, thereby forming at least one photoimageable resist layer bearing film comprising a plurality of photoimageable resist layer bearing film portions, each of said photoimageable resist layer bearing film portions bearing thereon at least one said photoimageable resist layer portion; laminating said photoimageable resist layer bearing film on at least one side of a substrate so as to bring the upper surface of said photoimageable resist layer into contact with said substrate; exposing said photoimageable resist layer to light through said carrier film to form an exposed resist layer; removing said carrier film from said exposed resist layer; developing said exposed resist layer to form a developed resist layer; curing said developed resist layer to form a solder mask on said substrate; and cutting said photoimageable resist layer bearing film into a plurality of said photoimageable resist layer bearing film portions so as to have each of said photoimageable resist layer bearing film portions bear thereon at least one of said separate photoimageable resist layer portions prior to the laminating of said photoimageable resist layer bearing film on at least one side of said substrate.