Dave Hillman's reply is right on the money regarding the technical aspects underlying your questions. I would like to amplify on his answer, since the original questions imply the need for some more fundamental explanation. Q: "Could anyone tell me is there any way to reduce the gold leaching from a gold plated board. " A: Gold in contact with liquid tin/lead solder will rapidly go into solution with tin; therefore, there is no practical solution to prevent this 'leaching'. Dave Hillman writes: "make sure that you have enough solder volume to allow the gold to dissolve evenly into the joint AND that your process is such that the time and temperature profile allows this dissolution to take place"--If there is not enough solder volume for the gold volume present, the gold concentration, even at uniform dispersal, can be high enough to cause gold embrittlement AND even if there is enough solder volume, inadequate time and temperature profiles do not allow for uniform dispersal of the gold throughout the solder volume and therefore might lead to locally high enough Au concentrations to cause gold embrittlement. Q: "I have heard that hot air reflow will have more gold-leaching as compared to Infrared reflow." A: If proper reflow profiles are run, the reflow oven will not make any difference. Werner Engelmaier Engelmaier Associates, Inc. Electronic Packaging, Interconnection and Reliability Consulting 23 Gunther Street Mendham, NJ 07945 USA Phone & Fax: 201-543-2747 E-mail: [log in to unmask] *************************************************************************** * TechNet mail list is provided as a service by IPC using SmartList v3.05 * *************************************************************************** * To unsubscribe from this list at any time, send a message to: * * [log in to unmask] with <subject: unsubscribe> and no text. * ***************************************************************************