Thomas,
Yes it is possible but it is less expensive to have the whole board finished
with gold (areas not covered by solder mask).  The process is called
selective gold and requires some extra steps in the processing of the board.
If you are wire bonding you will need soft gold.  Your comments about
relocating these pads to the edge of the board indicates maybe you are
thinking about the standard process used for gold finger connectors.  That
is considered hard gold and to my understanding you can't bond to it.  My
company is currently doing a revision of a design with the soft gold for
wire bonding and will be fabricating it as well.


        -----Original Message-----
        From:   Cates, Thomas [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
        Sent:   Tuesday, October 19, 1999 11:44 AM
        To:     [log in to unmask]
        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