Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1529411
NOVEMBER 2024 I PCB007 MAGAZINE 57 significantly less compared to nickel-chrome. e furniture manufacturer actually gave it their own brand name when they started mak- ing it on their chairs. Meanwhile, we took it around to other mar- kets. I talked to plumbing companies like Kohler where there was interest, but we got the best traction with people using high-tempera- ture processes. For example, we met some guys who needed circuit boards in their ovens that could reach temperatures of 600°F. Tin-nickel was stable up to 700°F and it would still func- tion. at's how these high-temperature boards and applications first entered the picture. Mike, what was the original intent behind the development of tin-nickel at Electrochemicals? Carano: Interestingly, in those early days, Elec- trochemicals was primarily an industrial fin- ishing company. We were selling nickel, zinc, chromates, and nickel plating for car bumpers, doorknobs, and furniture. We developed this as a tin-nickel finish for those applications. en, one day, I got a call from Happy Holden. I'll never forget it. We had been developing a chemistry that could be used in the copper brass mill. ey would run pipes and wires through an oven to anneal, and it would get oxidized. Anneal- ing improved the strength of the metals, the pipes, or whatever was running through the oven, but then you had to clean off the oxide by taking it through a very nasty chemical—in those days it was sodium dichromates or chro- mic acid. One of our scientists asked why we couldn't get away from chromates as an etchant to be more environmentally sound. Hydrogen per- oxide sulfuric acid was proposed because it could etch copper and remove oxide. We called it Cobrasol and it worked beautifully. Every- one jumped on the bandwagon. en I got the call from Happy, who said, "I saw your Cobra- sol process. Can you etch a circuit board?" We said, "What's a circuit board?" We had developed a technology, but it was more than that. We had stabilizers that pre- vented extraneous breakdown of the peroxide, because it could be unstable in the presence of metals. Our process reduced the instabil- ity. Pretty soon, Happy had the Cobrasol pro- cess in all the Hewlett Packard plants that were making circuit boards. It put Electrochemicals on the map and completely changed our busi- ness strategy. Once we decided to change our focus to printed circuits, we became very innova- tive with other products. We created the first brown oxide, and of course, we discovered tin- nickel plating. Not bad for a little industrial fin- ishing company out of Youngstown, Ohio. Holden: Tin-nickel could still be adopted today and might be viewed as especially ben- eficial considering the sustainability and circu- larity. ere were only a few of us back then who experimented with it and understood its potential benefits. As Dr. Adler explained, tin-nickel allowed us to put a noble metal over it, but in a very thin plated layer, and that thin layer of plating " I got the call from Happy, who said, 'I saw your Cobrasol process. Can you etch a circuit board?' We said, 'What's a circuit board?' "