Andre,
What you probably have is referred to as "background plating". Areas of the
soldermask actually catalized which allowed the nickel and gold to plate to
the mask. There are several things that can cause this dilemma during the
plating process-such as overheating or extended dwell time in the
catalyst/palladium bath, poor rinsing after the catalyst bath prior to
nickel plate, lack of sufficient stabilizer in the nickel bath which causes
the nickel bath to become overactive. We installed the ENIG process about a
year ago and had the same situation at one time.

Tony Steinke
AIT-Atlanta Inc.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Andre Leclair" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2003 4:32 PM
Subject: [TN] Gold Splashes on Solder Mask


> We have recently received a batch of boards from the PCB House which had
> gold in verious places on the soldermask..  Has anyone seen this before?
> How much/what should we be conserned about ?  A few of the boards are
> definate rejects due to electrical clearance violations.
> The boards were supposed to be Hasel.
>
> Thanks
> Andre
>
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