I remember encountering this problem in 1966 and revisiting again in 1975 when
the price of gold skyrocketed. Forgive me if I can't quote exact figures. My
notes are long gone.
I don't know what 'hard electroplated gold' is. Some sort of alloy I guess.
Without compsition the term means nothing to me.
I'm sure you know why gold is used for a contact material, no oxides, low
resistance, etc. Our studies showed that failing boards had 50 to 70 um of
gold over the base copper. The solution was to electroplate a minimum of 250
um of nickel between the copper and gold. I believe this is now a standard IPC
specification.
I suspect rhodium could be used in place of the nickel but the gold would
still be needed as nickel and rhodium both oxidize.
If I were working this issue I would compare my load board fab specifications
with those of IPC (www.ipc.org) and see where the ball was dropped. This
problem has been solved decades ago.
Fred Townsend
DC to Light
San Jose
David Cuthbert wrote:
We’re running into life issues on load boards where the Johnstech socket
wears through a layer of 50 um hard electroplated gold. Does anyone have
experience with Rhodium electroplating as a long life replacement for gold?
The gold is specified for a hardness of 160-200 Knoop and Rhodium is 900-1000
Knoop.
Dave Cuthbert
Senior Test Engineer
NARTE Certified EMC Engineer
***LINEAR TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION***
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