Gold wire bonding: requires adequate thickness of a compatible metal, these may be gold or palladium. Examples are: Electrolytic Ni with Electrolytic soft gold (>20 uins) Electroless Ni with Electroless gold (>20 uins) Electroless NI with electroless Pd (10-15 uins) with immersion gold flash (1 uins) Traditionally immersion gold at < 5 uins has limited success for gold wire bonding. Electroless Ni (150 uins) with Immersion gold (>5uins) is an ideal finish for Al wire bonding. The Al wire bonds readily to the underlying Ni. George Milad Technical Mkt Mngr LeaRonal Inc ################################################################ TechNet E-Mail Forum provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c ################################################################ To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the body: To subscribe: SUBSCRIBE TechNet <your full name> To unsubscribe: SIGNOFF TechNet ################################################################ Please visit IPC's web site (http://www.ipc.org) "On-Line Services" section for additional information. For technical support contact Hugo Scaramuzza at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.312 ################################################################