George,

You bring up many valid points.

But if it's such black magic, and so difficult, why can come vendors produce millions of boards without black pad, while others have regular issues?

Any vendor that can't be trusted to keep their plating processes under control probably can't be trusted for worth trusting for laminates, drilling, etc, .  It's come a long way since the 90's, it's not so hard any more.

Being in design, rather than manufacturing, I suppose I do view it differently.  I've always gone by if it's not too difiicult to do, we should strive to be good enough to do it.  The problem I'm dealing with now would have happened with ImAg, HASL, etc., it's just being blamed on ENiG.

All JMHO.

Pete

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