In recent years, new light sources such as light emitting diode (LED), organic EL and so forth have been expanding demands as lighting and display devices, making the best use of advantages in low power consumption and long life. In particular, LED has been used in a variety of applications including mobile communication devices such as mobile phone, display, vehicle console panel, traffic light, and other home electric appliances. In these sorts of electric and electronic appliances, pursuit of lighter weight and smaller size is an accelerated trend mainly for the requirements of designability and portability.
Surface mounting technology (SMT), known as a key technology for implementing the weight reduction and downsizing, has been disseminated and applied to a number of electric and electronic appliances. By virtue of the technology, mounting density on electronic circuit board has sharply been increased, and the weight reduction and downsizing have been implemented to a degree which could not be reached before.
When the SMT is applied, the whole parts mounted on the electronic circuit board are soldered en bloc, so that all materials used therefor have to be resistant to soldering temperature (230 to 240° C.). Heat resistant resin composition is known as a material suitable for this sort of application (see Patent Literature 1, for example).
Laser direct structuring (occasionally referred to as “LDS”, hereinafter) has attracted public attention as one plating technique capable of enabling three-dimensional design directly onto LED or the like. The LDS is a technique of typically irradiating laser light onto the surface of a resin article which contains an LDS additive so as to activate only the portion irradiated by the laser light, and applying a metal to the activated portion to thereby form thereon a plated layer. The technique is characterized by that a metal structure may be formed directly onto the surface of a resin base, without using an adhesive or the like. The LDS technique is disclosed, for example, in Patent Literatures 2 to 4.