Jorge,

        I've had your problem before in past life, however the gold
thickness was far more, on the order of 2.5 micro meters. We asked our
customer to lower their plating thickness and the solder joints improved
greatly. I believe we asked for them to go to 0.5 micrometer gold thickness.


        If you think the gold is the problem, try pre-tinning the connector
leads and see if it helps? We used water soluble Sn/Pb/Ag 62/36/2 alloy for
solder paste and it worked well.

Mike Di Giacomo
Process Development Engineer



-----Original Message-----
From: Jorge Rodriguez [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2001 4:39 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [TN] Gold embrittlement


We have a SMT connector with leads that have a minimum of 0.1 micrometers of
gold plating over 1.5 micrometers of nickel underneath. We don't know why
the solder joint on this component, even though it looks OK,  breaks and
fractures very easily. I suspect the gold is making the joint very brittle
but I am not sure. We already checked the oven profile and it looks alright.
From all the components this is the only one we are having problems with.
Any advice?. Is there a solder paste that help when gold plated components
are used?


Any advice would be appreciated.


Jorge Rodriguez
Process Engineer
Varian Electronics Manufacturing
E-mail: [log in to unmask]

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