COPPER FOIL WEIGHT vs.

THICKNESS
The copper foil on the printed circuit board has two very confusing units of measure. These
units are frequently mixed and confused for one another. To understand the reason the
confusion has persisted, one must first understand that there are three stake holders in the
commerce chain that do not necessarily speak the same language or communicate with each
other. The stakeholders are: The Foil supplier, the Fabricator, and the End User. The units of
confusion are ounces and mils (1 mil is 0.001”).

OUNCES (The Foil Supplier)

This is a very antiquated apothecary measure that has somehow survived in the PCB industry.
The designation “ounces of copper” is interpreted as follows. One ounce by English measure of
weight and having a density of 5.14 oz/in3 (8.9g/cm3) is uniformly spread over 1 square foot of
area (144 in2). In the case of copper this process will yield a finished thickness of 0.00135”. The
industry now “rounds” this up to 0.0014” in “print”, but not in fact. This measure in the “tribal
knowledge” of the industry is often further rounded up to 0.0015”. Depending upon whom is
asked (Copper supplier, Print medium, User), the definition of “One Ounce” can be three
figures. However, in terms of what is actually delivered, it is always from the measure of the
copper foil supplier.

MIL’s (The Fabricator)

From the perspective of the Fabricator of a Printed Circuit Board, they work in “Mils” or
thousandths of an inch when referring to thickness. The fabricator purchases laminate with
copper foil applied, but does not have any control over the unit of measure in which the foil is
supplied. The fabricator then plates up or chemically erodes the foil they have purchased (in
ounces). The fabricator will always specify thickness of copper in Mils. The most common use
of this term is to define the thickness of the copper plated in the finished hole of the printed
circuit board. Plated copper thickness is often referred to as “1 Mil in the hole”. This means
the fabricator has plated up 0.001” of copper in the hole and on any external copper foil that is
exposed during the electroplating process.

END USER SPECIFICATIONS (The Customer)

The juxtaposition of “ounces” and “mils” is common on fabrication drawings. The end user
often specifies the finished thickness of the copper in ounces instead of mils. For example, a

Stanley L Bentley, P.E. October 13, 2012

Senior Technical Advisor
customer may ask for 2 ounces of finished copper. This interpretation is not simple for the
fabricator to determine or deliver. The fabricator will have conflicting requirements if the
customer also asks for “one mil in the hole”. If the fabricator begins with one ounce foil and
plates up one mil, the external copper will have a theoretical thickness of 0.00235”. Two ounce
“foil” would have a theoretical thickness of 0.0027”, a difference of 0.00035”. In practice, the
differential is even greater. This differential is often a cause for confusion and confrontation.

FABRICATOR APPROACH

The fabricator has an additional issue not addressed by theoretical measures. They must deal
with manufacturing tolerances and process losses. The fabricator must clean and “roughen”
the copper surface of the foil they have purchased. If they do not, they cannot apply additional
plating with any degree of reliability or uniformity. These process losses are typically 100 micro
inches per major operation. Different types of boards have different “major operations” and
therefore, more or less process loss of thickness due to chemical action. Further, an acid
copper electro plating operation does not precisely follow a theoretical model. True, it is a time
vs. plating current density function, but the current density is not uniform over the 3-D
topography of the printed circuit board. The plating will be thicker or thinner depending upon
the effective surface area exposed to the erosion anode (the source of the copper that is being
plated). What all of this means is that to meet one requirement, the fabricator may have to
violate another.

In the case of the fabrication drawing asking for one mil in the hole and 2 oz finished copper,
the fabricator must make a choice. If he chooses to use the ounces, he must either plate
additional copper in the hole (1.3 mils or more) or he must start with a thicker foil (for example
2 ounce). The thicker foil is very problematic given modern circuit densities. The fabricator
now will have a finished thickness of 0.0037” (3.7 mils), which severely limits the line widths
and spaces he can image, plate or cover with solder mask. In order for the fabricator to use this
approach, the PCB layout must have been performed with this process in mind. There is
seldom the needed communication between the fabricator and the PCB designer to allow this
solution to be viable.

What does the fabricator do?

IPC

Stanley L Bentley, P.E. October 13, 2012

Senior Technical Advisor
The IPC, Association Connecting Electronics Industries, is the recognized standards body for the electronics
industry in terms of fabrication and assembly of printed circuit boards. The IPC-4562 allows a
foil tolerance of ± 10%. This means the delivered copper foil could vary between .00121” and
.00147”. Therefore, should the fabrication drawing reference an IPC acceptability class (such as
IPC class 2 in the IPC-A-600 Rev H Acceptability of Printed Boards), and also use ounces, the drawing
has by default agreed to a thickness range.

CONCLUSION

Therefore, should the fabrication drawing ask for two ounce finished thickness and also IPC
class 2, the customer is assumed to have agreed to accept a minimum of 0.0022” in finished
copper thickness. The fabricator would be in total drawing compliance should they begin with
one ounce foil and plate up the minimum copper (in-hole) thickness for IPC class 2 of .0008”.
This process has become the fabrication industry standard for addressing a request for 2 oz
finished copper.

TECHNICAL PURITY

There is an additional tolerance that is not significant in a gross measurement but should be
noted for technical purity. The cause is the treatment of the foil, which is significant in
laboratory analysis and foil performance. The copper foil supplied to a fabricator is not truly a
flat sheet. In reality, it has typically three distinct zones. There is a thin outer treatment, the
base foil, and the sub-surface treatment. The two outer treatments are “rough” to allow ease
of bonding or further processing. This is particularly true of the sub-surface. The sub-surface
has what the industry calls, “a tooth”, which is a pyramidal structure that increases surface area
(for bonding) but reduces the copper mass in the cross sectional area. Depending upon where
a measurement is taken, this irregularity can have up to 1% of tolerance in the gross measure of
thickness. In the cross sectional analysis of a finished printed circuit board, the measurement is
usually taken at a 50% point in the sub-surface treatment to the top of foil. This measurement
location corresponds roughly to the valley point of the irregular tooth in the sub-surface
treatment.

RECOMMENDATIONS

• The juxtaposition of ounces and “mils” should be avoided.

• The use of ounces for finished copper on outer layers should be avoided if the absolute
cross sectional area of the trace or plane is critical.

Stanley L Bentley, P.E. October 13, 2012

Senior Technical Advisor
 o The finished copper of the plane or trace should be specified in a true thickness
measure (thousandths of an inch or micro meters)
• The use of ounces for finished copper on inner layers should be avoided In the case of
sequential lamination because there is a surface plating on the base foil for the inner
layers.
• The use of ounces for inner layer planes or traces, that are not sequentially laminated, is
acceptable as these usually a base foil that is eroded somewhat by the processing of the
inner layer.

Stanley L Bentley, P.E. October 13, 2012

Senior Technical Advisor