We have had a Fischerscope XRF in the plating environment, namely
     right next to our nickel gold platig line for nearly 13 years without
     any malfunctions due to the environment.  We have found it to be +/-
     10% accurate on gold thickness from 5-200 microinches.  However, the
     nickel measurement accuracy and precision drops off rapidly if the
     gold thickness is over 90 microinches.  Although you can measure
     nickel/gold metallurgically, the gold thickness, which is usually 50
     microinches or less in our applications, is very difficult to measure
     unless you have greater than 1000x magnification.  Nickel can be
     measured metallurgically, but takes much longer and more resources
     than XRF.

     Michael Holan
     HADCO Corp.
     Austin, TX
     512-246-5612


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: [TN] Measurements of Gold over Nickel
Author:  edward edward szpruch <[log in to unmask]> at smtplink-hadco
Date:    10/5/99 8:34 AM


I am looking after alternative method of measuring of electroplated Gold
over Nickel for production .Gold thickness is in range from 0.75 to 2.5
microns.
I have in my plant beta scope with Promethium source with lot of problems.I
have also XRF,that can not be placed in production area.
Any sugestions?

Edward Szpruch
Eltek , Manager of Process Engineering
P.O.Box 159 ; 49101 Petah Tikva Israel
Tel  ++972 3 9395050 , Fax  ++972 3 9309581
e-mail   [log in to unmask]

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