I recently received immersion gold finished boards from a PCB supplier where
some of the edges of the traces were black.  The gold was flaking or had a
bubbled appearance in areas as well.

I was told that the black was lead build-up from the plating bath since extra
lead was used to limit the reactivity of the bath.  I was also told that if we
could live with the flaking, the lead build-up was not a reliability concern
as long as we had good solderability.

Is it likely that it is only lead and that reliability is not a problem?

Frank

################################################################
TechNet E-Mail Forum provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c
################################################################
To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the body:
To subscribe:   SUBSCRIBE TechNet <your full name>
To unsubscribe:   SIGNOFF TechNet 
################################################################
Please visit IPC web site (http://jefry.ipc.org/forum.htm) for additional information.
For the technical support contact Dmitriy Sklyar at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.311
################################################################