The difference between PCB gold plating and sunk gold

Gold-plated and gold-plated boards are often used in PCB boards. Many readers are unable to distinguish between the two, and some customers even think there is no difference between the two.

So these two kinds of "gold plate" on the circuit board will cause what kind of impact? I'll explain it to you in detail and help you figure out the concept thoroughly.

1. What is gold plating

We say the whole plate gold plating, generally refers to the "electric gold plating" "electroplating nickel gold plate" "electrolytic gold" "electric gold" "electric nickel gold plate", soft gold and hard gold distinction (general hard gold is used for gold fingers).

The principle is to dissolve nickel and gold (commonly known as gold salt) in chemical solution, dip the circuit board in the plating cylinder and switch on the current and generate nickel gold coating on the copper foil surface of the circuit board, electric nickel gold coating due to high hardness, wear resistance, not easy to oxidation advantages in electronic products have been widely used.

So what is sunken gold? Gold deposition is a method of chemical REDOX reaction to generate a layer of coating, generally thick, is a method of chemical nickel gold layer deposition, can achieve a thick gold layer

2. PCB gold plate and gold plate difference

(1) Generally, the thickness of sunken gold is much thicker than that of gold-plated. The sunken gold will be golden yellow and more yellow than gold-plated. The two form different crystal structures.

(2) Due to the different crystal structure formed by sunken gold and gold plating, sunken gold is easier to weld than gold plating, which will not cause poor welding and cause customer complaints. At the same time because of the soft gold than gold, so gold finger plate generally choose gold, hard gold wear.

(3) There is only nickel gold on the pad of the gold-plated plate, and the signal transmission in skin effect is in the copper layer without affecting the signal.

(4) Compared with gold plating, the crystal structure of sunk gold is more compact and it is not easy to produce oxidation.

(5) With the wiring more and more dense, line race, spacing has reached 3-4mil. Gold plating is easy to produce gold wire short circuit. Only the solder plate has nickel gold, so it will not produce gold wire short circuit.

(6) The gold plate only has nickel gold on the pad, so the combination of resistance welding and copper layer on the line is more solid. The project does not affect the spacing when compensating.

(7) Generally used for relatively high requirements of the board, flatness is better, generally use sunken gold, sunken gold generally will not appear after the assembly of the black mat phenomenon. The smoothness and service life of the sunk plate are as good as those of the gold-plated plate.

The above is the difference between gold plate and gold plate. Now the gold price is expensive on the market. In order to save costs, many producers are not willing to produce gold plate, but only do the metal plate with nickel gold on the pad.