Thieving, also known as Thieving Pad, Copper Thieving, or Copper Fill, is an outer layer only process, which means “copper squares” or “copper dots” are added to outer layers of a PCB board to create a uniform distribution of copper across the surface. Thieving is to make sure the copper plating in the holes is uniform. If the copper distribution in the artwork is not uniform, areas with little exposed copper will plate very heavy while areas with large amounts of copper, such as BGAs or connector pin fields will not plate properly. In copper plating process, “thieving” steals some of the plating current that would otherwise concentrate on features that are sparse and be spread thin in areas with areas that are dense with features. Copper thieving can be applied on FR4 PCB, flexible circuit and rigid-flex board.

Thieving Copper, Thieving Pad, Copper Thieving, Copper Fill, Copper Squares, Copper Dots
Thieving Copper, Thieving Pad, Copper Thieving, Copper Fill, Copper Squares, Copper Dots