• Immersion Gold PCB Board and Gold Plated PCB Board Comparison

Immersion gold PCB board and gold-plated PCB board are commonly used processes in circuit board production today. As the integration of ICs in PCB assembly boards becomes higher and higher, the IC pins are more and more dense. In the vertical tin-spraying process, it is difficult to blow the thin pads flat, which brings difficulty to SMT process; in addition, the shelf life of the tin-spraying plate is very short. The gold-plated PCB board just solved these problems. For the surface mount process, especially for 0603 and 0402 ultra-small surface mount, because the flatness of the pad is directly related to the quality of the solder paste printing process, it has a decisive influence on the quality of the subsequent PCB reflow soldering.Therefore, the gold-plated PCB board is common in high-density and ultra-small surface mount technology. In the trial production stage, the influence of factors such as component procurement is often not soldered immediately when the PCB manufacturing board comes, but often waits for several weeks or even months before use.The shelf life of gold-plated boards is better than tin board. Therefore, PCB manufacturers are happy to adopt. And the cost of gold-plated PCB proofing stage is almost the same as that of lead-tin alloy board.

What is gold plating: the whole pcb board is gold plated. Generally refers to [electroplated gold] [electroplated nickel gold plate], [electrolytic gold], [electric gold], [electric nickel gold plate], there is a distinction between soft gold and hard gold (generally used as gold fingers). The principle is to dissolve nickel and gold in the chemical liquid, immerse the circuit board in the electroplating cylinder and apply current to generate a nickel-gold coating on the copper foil surface of the circuit board. Due to high hardness and not easily oxidized that electroless nickel gold is widely used in electronic products. What is Immersion Gold: A layer of plating is produced by chemical oxidation-reduction reaction, generally thicker, which is a kind of chemical nickel gold layer deposition method, which can reach a thicker gold layer, usually called Immersion Gold.

The difference between immersion gold pcb and gold plated pcb

1. The crystal structure formed by immersion gold and gold plating is different. The thickness of immersion gold for gold is much thicker than that of gold plating. Immersion gold will be golden yellow than gold plating, and customers are more satisfied.

2. Immersion gold is easier to solder than gold plating, and will not cause poor soldering of the circuit board. Immersion gold board is more conducive to bonding processing. At the same time, it is precisely because the immersion gold is softer than the gold plating, so the immersion gold plate does not wear if making gold fingers.

3. Immersion gold plate only has nickel gold on the pad, the signal transmission in the skin effect is in the copper layer and will not affect the signal.

4. Immersion gold has a denser crystal structure than gold plating and is not easy to be oxidated.

5. As PCB wiring becomes denser and denser, the line width and spacing have reached 3-4MIL. Gold plating is prone to short circuit of gold wire. Immersion gold PCB board will not produce gold wire short circuit.

6. Immersion gold PCB only has nickel gold on the pad, so the combination of solder mask and copper layer on the circuit is stronger. The project will not affect the spacing when making compensation.

7. Generally used for relatively demanding pcb boards,for better flatness, pcb manufacturers generally use immersion gold, and the immersion gold generally does not appear to be black mat after pcb assembly. The flatness and service life of the immersion gold PCB board are as good as the gold-plated PCB board.