The Ni "looks" fine Mike ; it's the boulders looking that way . But considering what Roger says, the Ni won't be as solid as it looks, you may be onto something . That brings me to next round of this saga : On Au some of the fabs really excel themselves , going to less than 0.3um(metric)of Au . Should I worry about porosity of gold and NiO formation in storage ? Next one ; stemming from this title ; what would be the bottom "safe" line on Ni ; 5um, 10um ??? = can we counter the quality with quantity ? thanks paul -----Original Message----- From: Carano,Michael [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Thursday, 26 August 1999 23:11 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [TN] Nickel plating contaminants ; cracking propagations ? Paul, Is what you are seeing looks like a mud cracked appearance in the nickel? -----Original Message----- From: Paul Klasek [SMTP:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 1999 7:51 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [TN] Nickel plating contaminants ; cracking propagations ? This must be a problem season : after flakes, cabbages and roses , I have this copper "boulders" alloy problem : On our routine microsectioning of (4umNi + 0.3umAu; 63/37) joints we discovered we have rather interesting phenomenon : After the obvious dissolution of gold ; there are sitting on top of Nickel (admittedly bit thin ; still , continuous) microcracked boulders (about same dia as the Ni layer) . when we zoomed scan on them ; we found they're CuSn alloy ! Looks like a smallpoxed nickel face . Now our regular profiling 's telling us we're nowhere near this alloying scenarios ; and we ponder about the cracking propagations ; the Q is : Where are this aliens coming from ? Contaminants of tubs from some previous process ? Smudged sample polish ? Appears only on one specific fab supply . Paul Klasek http://www,resmed,com ############################################################## TechNet Mail List 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 web site (http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm) for additional information. If you need assistance - contact Gayatri Sardeshpande at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5365 ############################################################## ############################################################## TechNet Mail List 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 web site (http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm) for additional information. If you need assistance - contact Gayatri Sardeshpande at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5365 ############################################################## ############################################################## TechNet Mail List 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 web site (http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm) for additional information. If you need assistance - contact Gayatri Sardeshpande at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5365 ##############################################################