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The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new copper electroplating formula which is able to fill blind microvias (BVHs) and through holes (THs) at one process through a direct current (DC) plating method.

Test boards of printed circuit board (PCB) fragments with BVHs and THs for filling plating are designed. The filling plating is conducted in a DC plating device, and the filling processes and influence factors on filling effect of BVHs and THs are investigated. Dimple depths, surface copper thickness, thermal shock and thermal cycle test are applied to characterize filling effect and reliability. In addition, to overcome thickness, increase of copper on board surface during filling plating of BVHs and THs, a simple process called pattern plating, is put forwarded; a four-layered PCB with surface copper thickness less than 12 μm is successfully produced.

The filling plating with the new copper electroplating formula is potential to replace the conventional filling process of BVHs and THs of PCB and, most importantly, the problem of thickness increase of copper on board surface after filling process is overcome if a pattern plating process is applied.

The dimple depth of BVHs and THs after filling plating is not small enough, though it meets the requirements, and the smallest diameter and largest depth of holes studied are 75 and 200 μm, respectively. Hence, the possibility for filling holes of much more small in diameter and large in depth with the plating formula should be further studied.

The paper introduces a new copper electroplating formula which achieves BVHs and THs filling at one process through a DC plating method. It overall reduces production processes and improved reliability of products resulting in production cost saving and production efficiency improvement.

This paper aims to propose a modified full-additive method (MFAM) to fabricate fine copper lines for high density interconnection (HDI) printed circuit boards (PCBs). In addition, the surface of the fine copper lines is treated with a brown oxidation process to obtain good adhesion between the copper and the dielectric resin.

Fine copper lines fabricated by MFAM were observed to evaluate the undercut quality, in comparison to undercut quality of copper lines fabricated by the semi-additive method and the subtractive method. The effect of the thickness of the dry film on the quality of the copper plating was investigated to obtain the regular shape of fine lines. The fine copper lines treated with the brown oxidation process were also examined to generate a coarse surface microstructure to improve the adhesion between the copper and the dielectric resin. The cross section and surface of as-fabricated fine copper lines were characterized using an optical microscope, a scanning electron microscope and an atomic force microscope.

MFAM has the potential to fabricate high-performance fine copper lines for HDI PCBs. Undercut of as-fabricated fine copper lines could be prevented to meet the design requirement of impedance. In addition, fine copper lines exhibit enough adhesive force to laminate with dielectric resin after the brown oxidation process.

MFAM, with the advantages of high efficiency and being a facile process, is developed to fabricate high-quality fine copper lines for industrial HDI PCB manufacture.

The purpose of this paper is to study an electrolytic etching method to prepare fine lines on printed circuit board (PCB). And the influence of organics on the side corrosion protection of PCB fine lines during electrolytic etching is studied in detail.

In this paper, the etching factor of PCB fine lines produced by new method and the traditional method was analyzed by the metallographic microscope. In addition, field emission scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were used to study the inhibition of undercut of the four organometallic corrosion inhibitors with 2,5-dimercapto-1,3,4-thiadiazole, benzotriazole, l-phenylalanine and l-tryptophan in the electrolytic etching process.

The SEM results show that corrosion inhibitors can greatly inhibit undercut of PCB fine lines during electrolytic etching process. XPS results indicate that N and S atoms on corrosion inhibitors can form covalent bonds with copper during electrolytic etching process, which can be adsorbed on sidewall of PCB fine lines to form a dense protective film, thereby inhibiting undercut of PCB fine lines. Quantum chemical calculations show that four corrosion inhibitor molecules tend to be parallel to copper surface and adsorb on copper surface in an optimal form. COMSOL Multiphysics simulation revealed that there is a significant difference in the amount of corrosion inhibitor adsorbed on sidewall of the fine line and the etching area.

As a clean production technology, electrolytic etching method has a good development indicator for the production of high-quality fine lines in PCB industry in the future. And it is of great significance in saving resources and reducing environmental pollution.

This paper aims to develop an ideal technique for the preparation of print circuit boards (PCBs) with ladder conductive lines on practical industrial process lines.

First, the raw materials of ladder copper-clad laminates were prepared by plating double-sided copper-clad laminates with vertical plating line. Second, etching compensation experiments were designed and conducted to set up the relationships between etching compensation and width of conductive lines on ladder line print circuit boards (LLPCBs). Third, to evaluate the process technique for the preparation of LLPCBs through etching compensation, verification experiments were designed and conducted on a practical industrial process line, and the quality of lines on LLPCBs was observed and evaluated.

Under the judgment of the quality of conductive lines on LLPCBs as well as the feasibility with a practical industrial process line, the process technique for the preparation of LLPCBs with etching compensation is a simple and reliable method which has the potential to be applied in the industry.

It is the first successful report of a new method that produces LLPCBs with etching compensation and has the potential to be applied in the industry.

The asymmetric effect of conservatism on earnings and its other components serves as a contrivance to incorporate transparency and timeliness in financial reporting. This study aims to explore cash flow-return association, which provides insight into the accruals’ contribution that traverses through conservatism-earnings persistence liaison and its associated effects on stock returns.

The study used asymmetric timeliness (AT) model and two firm-year measures, namely, C-Score and conservatism ratio, to capture conservatism. The firm-year measures of conservatism, in addition to the AT measure, facilitate a better understanding of the persistence of reported earnings that branch out the study from the existing literature. Further, the study used panel regression analysis to evaluate the timeliness and persistence of earnings under the conservative approach with a sample of Indian corporate data from 2000 to 2017.

The findings of the study reveal that conservative earnings are less persistent and the accruals recognize bad news timelier than good news. The unfavorable change in earnings shows a lower earnings response coefficient in contrast to favorable earnings variations. However, the appropriate loss recognition nature of conservative reporting has little or no influence on stock returns in an emerging market such as India.

Accounting conservatism is a captivating feature accounting information, especially pertinent to many decision-makers. Thus, the study has implications for the investors while evaluating the adverse and positive changes in accounting earnings; also, the results are helpful for the standard setters in ongoing debate related to accounting conservatism vs fair evaluation. The present study focuses exclusively on ex-post conservatism, while the ex post and ex ante conservatism are having a significant role in accounting practices. Future research on the differential effects of ex post and ex ante conservatism on accounting information in an emerging market, is worth promising.

The study reveals the first Indian evidence on accounting conservatism and earnings persistence relationship, which would bring a different dimension to investors’ perception in evaluating the characteristic variations of reported earnings. The findings add value to the accounting standard setters concerning the asymmetric verification as Indian Accounting standards are on the verge of convergence with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).

The authors examine how a firm's strategic emphasis (SE) on value appropriation (VA) over value creation (VC) is associated with accounting conservatism.

To examine the effect of SE on a firm's adoption of conservative accounting practice, the authors measure SE as advertising expenses minus research and development (R&D) expenses scaled by total assets. The authors rely on the asymmetric timeliness of earnings from Basu (1997) to measure conditional conservatism and investigate how the incremental sensitivity of earnings to negative stock returns varies with the SE.

SE on VA over VC is found to be positively related to accounting conservatism since they want to deter entrants (i.e. competition adjustment) and to accommodate the tighter monitoring over the financial reporting system from stakeholders (i.e. risk adjustment). This argument is also supported by the additional cross-sectional tests based on the different level of market competition and external monitoring environment. In addition, the positive association between SE on VA over VC and accounting conservatism is less pronounced when managerial overconfidence is high.

Implication is that two important decisions (i.e. SE and accounting conservatism) are related with each other since both are to create competitive advantage and to maintain financial stability for a firm, and the relation differs by managerial characteristics.

This study highlights the differential roles of SE in shaping the conservatism in financial reporting and the importance of overconfidence in driving conservative accounting.

The purpose of this paper is to answer why the predominant competitive reaction (CR) is non-reactive one in the previous literature by showing that some fluctuations of CR may average out to zero.

This research proposes a model for measuring CR volatility to examine whether a firm’s CR differs over time. A rolling-windows time series approach is applied to three different data sets.

The results show that firms indeed react to each other, but the types of reactions vary over time, thereby creating a misunderstood “no-reaction” in the literature.

This study may help understand the gap between academic findings (i.e. no-reaction) and managerial reality (i.e. marketing wars).

Although a firm’s CR should be understood as a series of managerial actions that may change over time, the extant literature has not considered this temporal variation of CR. This paper provides a systematic review of the empirically based literature and provides insights into the importance of strategic variation in competitive dynamics.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of cost stickiness on conditional conservatism.

The research sample consists of listed companies from 18 countries, using stock market indices of the BRICS, MIST, North Africa, USA and EU over the period ranging from 1997 to 2015. The authors use the firm-fixed effects method in the estimation of the models.

The results provide evidence of the existence of cost stickiness and conditional conservatism in the international context, using the Banker et al. (2016) model. They also argue that the conditional conservatism model (Basu, 1997) is overstated because it does not control for cost stickiness. In additional analyses, the authors conclude that the association between cost stickiness and accounting conservatism changes across country groups and across industries. The authors also document that the employee intensity and free cash-flow, as cost stickiness determinants, remain significant in the model including accounting conservatism. Moreover, the findings show that sticky cost behavior distorts inferences about standard demand drivers of conservatism such as leverage and size.

The findings are interesting and provide a better understanding of cost stickiness and conditional conservatism, and the interaction between these two phenomena in the international context, across country groups and across industries. To the best of the author’s knowledge, the study is the first one including free cash flow as a proxy for agency problem in the full model combining conservatism and cost stickiness models (Banker et al., 2016).

This study aims to measure the magnitude of information asymmetry between insiders and outsiders in Indian equity market. The study also investigates the effect of major information sources that affect information asymmetry namely, the informativeness of financial statements, news reports about the company and analyst follow-up.

Six-month profitability of insider trade was used as the proxy to measure information asymmetry. Fama-MacBeth two-stage regression was used to analyse the effect of information sources upon information asymmetry.

The results of the analysis demonstrate that in comparison with findings of similar studies the level of information asymmetry is comparatively high in India. On an average, profitable insider traders in India earn 19.28 per cent return than outside investors. Purchase transactions are more profitable than sales transactions, while the size of company and information asymmetry is associated inversely. Further, news and analyst follow-up are inversely associated with information asymmetry whereas informativeness of financial statements has little effect on information asymmetry.

The study have important insights for corporates in insider information management and legal compliance of insiders’ market activities. Results pointing to the requirements of a deeper Regulatory monitoring and stringent legal framework.

The result validates the concerns of investor protection against informed trade.

The measurement of information asymmetry using profitability of insider trade is novel in Indian context even though the methodology is often used in the literature.

This study aims to examine the effects of agency cost on auditor choice. This paper also deals with the moderating role of the board’s financial expertise (Bfe) and the status of the internal control (Intecon) system on the relationship between agency cost and auditor selection.

This study’s sample consists of 1,040 firm-year observations of Iranian nonfinancial companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange from 2012 to 2019. The information required for this research is mainly extracted from Comprehensive Database of All Listed Companies (in Iran Stock Exchange). Data from 130 companies were obtained during the research period. This study used logistic regression to test the hypotheses.

The findings indicate that companies with higher agency costs choose the auditor from lower classes. As the proportion of financial expert members on the board increases, the intensity of this relationship will be reduced. Companies with higher agency costs choose the auditor from the lower classes, but the higher the ratio of financial expert board members, the more these companies will choose high-quality auditors. However, findings showed that the status of the Intecon system has no moderating effect on the relationship between agency costs and auditor selection.

The results of this study can expand the existing literature on the relationship between auditor selection and agency costs and the factors affecting this relationship, especially the Bfe and Intecon. This research has significant suggestions for regulators, stakeholders, shareholders and analysts in emerging economies that may encounter similar contextual implications.