| Does anyone know if I will have problems soldering surface mount components to an all hard gold plated PC board. We want to use hard gold similar to gold used for edge fingers because our customer is concerned about wear and conductivity of connector pads located in the center of the board. Selective gold boards are too expensive for this volume (50 boards). We've used soft gold,(5-10 microinches of gold over 150 microinches of nickel) for other SMT boards, but this board will be plugged in and out many times. The hard gold we've chosen is 50 microinches of gold over 100-200 microinches of nickel.The board has components only on one side. Any feedback will be appreciated. | It's becoming a long day. Forgive me, but is 5-10 thick compared with 5-10 millionths". I just can't get it together.
Anyway, thin gold coatings, whether electroplated or electrolessly deposited, offer no problems with solder joint embrittlement. It's the phosphorous in the nickle bath that provides intermetallics that cause the problems. Look at all the discussion traffic on this subject. Ask Motorola. After all, they helped start this stuff.
Earl Moon
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