Hi team - well, as usual the truth actually lies in the middle of the
technical discussion. Supporting Vlad's point, solder is fairly robust to
silver in terms of degrading integrity influences so in most of our
soldering situations its not an issue. Supporting Werner's point, he did
have a specific case where silver embrittlement of the solder joint was the
root cause of a series of solder joint failures. Werner and I had long
discussions on that case as it was very interesting despite being somewhat
of an odd case. So the final answer is silver can be an issue but it takes
some specific metallurgical conditions. The immersion silver surface
finished used today on printed circuit boards will not contribute to the
degradation of solder joint integrity.

Dave

On Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 7:02 AM, Vladimir Igoshev <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Hi Guy,
>
> With all due respect to Warner memory, silver IS NOT like gold and DOES
> NOT cause embrittlement.
>
> Therefore, from the reliability point of view it wouldn't matter what
> thickness of IAg was on a board, as long as we ONLY talking about the
> amount of Ag which would and up in the joints after re-flow.
>
> Regards,
>
>  Vladimir
>
> Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Rogers network.
>   Original Message
> From: Guy Ramsey
> Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 2015 07:37
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Reply To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [TN] immersion silver
>
> If Werner were alive he would be reminding us that silver, like gold, is a
> contaminate in tin solder.
> Early finishes, prior to 2005 or so, weren't good for multiple reflows.
> Some
> presumed it was too thin.
> I believe the problem was the durability of the organic additives that
> retard oxidation of the silver.
> Not perfect, but it is my preferred surface finish, but not too thick.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Steven Kelly
> Sent: Monday, August 10, 2015 3:47 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [TN] immersion silver
>
> Hi All,
> Why would someone choose thick immersion silver over thin? Are these
> different chemistries? Regards Steve Kelly
>
>
> Phone(O) (416) 750-8433
> Phone (C) (416) 577-8433
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