The reasons for the request being the difficulty in protecting the selective gold during the EN process - generally done with photo resist, but this will breakdown in the elevated temps of the EN bath. The flash gold process will certainly give you areas above the thickness of the IG - electrolytic AU will have differentials in thickness due to circuit geometry, which can be fairly drastic depending on the PCB design. You may want to look at using IT or IS in place of ENIG. 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: John Parsons [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Tuesday, April 19, 2005 4:28 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [TN] ENIG vs Flash Gold We have sent a board to our off-shore vendor for fabrication. The pcb finish is spec'd as immersion gold with selective hard gold. Our Chinese vendor has come back asking if they can process as flash gold with selective hard gold. Correct me if I am wrong as I have seen "flash gold" and "immersion gold" referenced as the same process but I believe that flash gold is an electrolytic process is it not? I am leaning towards approving this request but is there anything I should be aware of or question before I do so? Any "gotchas"? From what I have read "flash" gold can be process as either hard or soft. Can I assume that if they are going to use it to replace immersion gold that the finish will be comparable for solderability? John Parsons --------------------------------------------------- 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 -----------------------------------------------------