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52 The PCB Magazine • February 2016 2. Mallory, G.O., Hajdu, J.B., Electroless Plat- ing: Fundamentals and Application, New York: American Electroplaters and Surface Finishers Society. Originally published in the proceedings of SMTA International 2015. Authors: Jun Nable, Ph.D. is research project manager; Ernest Long, Ph.D. is director, research; Emely Abel-Tatis is chemist; John Swanson is director, final finish; and Martin Bunce is global application specialist—all with MacDermid, Inc. For more information, click here. Figure 10: Images of the ball shear failure mode showing the preferred ductile failure mechanism for a new bath (a) 0 mto and at the end of bath life at (b) 12 mto. Conclusion A new cyanide-free immersion gold plating process is presented. The plating behavior and performance results in this study have shown to be suitable for ENIG. The corrosion caused by the displacement reaction to plate gold onto the underlying nickel layer is very minimal. The gold plating bath is very stable and gives a con- sistent plating rate throughout its bath life. The solderability tests have met or even exceeded IPC standard requirements. The exclusion of cyanide from the plat- ing chemistry makes it more environmentally friendly and lessen any potential toxic cyanide health hazards and risk to the user. Beside the health and environmental benefits, this cya- nide-free gold allows a much lower operating temperature of 40°C, leading to better energy savings. Acknowledgement The authors would like to acknowledge the assistance of Paul Romaine and Ron Szulis for providing the electroless nickel plating and conducting some of the sample preparation and evaluation. PCB References 1. Coombs, C.F. Printed Circuits Handbook, 5 th Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. a b Jun Nable Emely Abel-Tatis Martin Bunce Cyanide-free iMMersion gold suitable for pCb surfaCe finishing