I recommend that you ask the board house what the cost variations on
"selective gold" this process usually adds cost to the board price since
they have to mask the board to protect the areas that you do not want gold.
I have found that the cost actually will go down when you gold plate the
entire board and manufacturing has liked this better on FPP since HASL is
not controllable in the flatness aspect.
----- Original Message -----
From: Cates, Thomas <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, October 19, 1999 8:43 AM
Subject: [DC] goldplating


> We are designing a small board that requires some very small gold contacts
> for wire bonding one part (bare-die). The "pads" or contacts are 10 x 15
> mils. The rest of the pads and traces on the board don't need any gold, so
> we would prefer not to plate the whole board, for obvious reasons.
> Is it possible to gold plate just certain pads, and not others?
> These pads are not near the board edge, but could be re-designed to be
close
> enough to run traces to the edge to hook-up current, if that would work.
> Any suggestions or war stories on this situation would be helpful.
> Thanks - TC