Hi Bob, First, with ENIG you do not solder to gold, but to the underlying nickel; Second, soldering to Ni requires more thermal energy, thus higher temperatures, and that is really bad news on top of the T-increase necessary for LF-solders; Third, the 'black pad' issue will not go away with LF-solderas,but actually may become worse. Thus, Immersion Ag is a good choice. Werner Engelmaier -----Original Message----- From: Jeffrey Bush <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] Sent: Wed, 27 Apr 2005 07:14:42 -0400 Subject: Re: [TN] gold vs copper plating on pcb's If you stick with ENIG and do not test Immersion Silver then I am sure you will be doing future testing to combat the issues with ENIG. Monies are being put into the development if silver and several toughed formulas are coming out that have excellent resistance to TC and do not have the issues associated with ENIG. OSP is also seeing some development, but I do not see this as a viable alternative today. Jeffrey Bush Director, Quality Assurance and Technical Support VERMONT CIRCUITS INCORPORATED 76 Technology Drive - POB 1890 Brattleboro, Vermont 05302 Voice: 802.257.4571.21 Fax: 802.257.0011 http://www.vtcircuits.com -----Original Message----- From: Bob Arciolla [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Tuesday, April 26, 2005 4:41 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [TN] gold vs copper plating on pcb's Good Afternoon all, Our company will be switching over to lead free and we have received sample pcb's from one of our vendors and one board has gold (ENIG) for the traces and one has copper (OSP). From some of the emails I have seen on Technet it appears that gold is what most of companies are going to be using? Is this correct or is there some other materials we should be looking into to use? Is the gold more reliable than the copper? Any input would be greatly appreciated. --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8e To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815 ----------------------------------------------------- Regards, Bob --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8e To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815 ----------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8e To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815 -----------------------------------------------------