It has been my experience that the problems with soldering to ENIG, especially if the assembly has BGA-type components, presents a much worse potential problem than the handling issues with immersion silver. There are reams and reams of papers written about nickel's insolubility, the need for higher reflow temperatures and longer dwell times above liquidus, the weaker IMF obtained with ENIG, black pad issues, long term reliability issues, etc. Based on my experience over the past 5 years with immersion silver versus ENIG, I would prefer immersion silver and its "storage issues" over ENIG in nearly every application, especially those with high-frequency/high impedance circuitry. Working for a major CEM and two major military contractors, I have never had a bad experience with immersion silver. Immersion tin, however, has presented severe storage problems. While I am one of immersion silver's biggest fans, I do acknoledge that there could be problems with silver migration, etc., but I have never run into that yet, and I have been involved with building literally hundreds of thousands of assemblies using both immersion silver and ENIG as a finish. I have had no reliability issues with immersion silver, none at all, but I have spent countless hours working on problems associated with ENIG. -----Original Message----- From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Phil Nutting Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2005 8:04 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [TN] RoHs board surface recommendations. And ENIG has no handling and storage issues like Immersion Silver and Immersion Tin. -----Original Message----- From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Edwin Louis Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2005 8:49 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [TN] RoHs board surface recommendations. If you are talking about PWB metallization, I would recommend ENIG. It is compatible with both Tin/Lead and Lead-free. -----Original Message----- From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Barry Gallegos Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2005 8:27 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [TN] RoHs board surface recommendations. Good Day TecNetters. Does anybody out there have Board surface recommendations for a RoHs process ? A matrix would be preferred. I don't seem to recall seeing any such type of document or discussions on TechNet so any help would be greatly appreciated. Barry Western Electronics. --------------------------------------------------- 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 ----------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- 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 -----------------------------------------------------