Trouble in Your Tank: Organic Addition Agents in Electrolytic Copper Plating
It’s Only Common Sense: Selling During an Economic Downturn
Marcy’s Musings: Can You Hear the Voices?
Has the Time Finally Come for Tin-nickel Plating?
December 9, 2024 | Marcy LaRont, PCB007 MagazineEstimated reading time: 1 minute
In the 1980s, Electrochemicals, Inc. (now Electrochemical Products) made a significant shift from furniture and industrial goods to electronics and manufacturing. During this journey, a tin-nickel plating alloy was developed. In 1984, Mike Carano, a young engineer, published a paper on tin-nickel plating alloy, but after some initial attention, the plating solution fell into obscurity.
Today, PCB fabrication looks largely the same, yet changes are afoot, chiefly due to the demands for very fine feature capability on printed circuit boards, as well as environmental sustainability. So, in this fascinating conversation with Mike Carano and Happy Holden, we take another look at tin-nickel and its advantages in both performance and sustainability.
Marcy LaRont: Mike, please explain the unique metal properties of the tin-nickel alloy and why fabricators should consider this as a surface finish solution today.
Mike Carano: Tin-nickel is a metastable alloy. It is monatomic, meaning that no matter what you do with the chemistry or how you manipulate the grams per liter of one metal or the other (or the amps per square foot), it always comes out as 65% of one metal and 35% of the other. I’m not aware this is true with any other combination of metals.
Typically, if your chemistry is out of balance—if you have more tin in the solution than you have lead—you will plate more tin. It’s precisely why there are so many alloys out there. In that respect, tin-nickel is pretty amazing.
Happy Holden: When I was at Hewlett-Packard, Dr. Morton Adler from Bell Labs called me and said he wanted us to fab his boards using tin-nickel, because he knew we were using it. I plated the boards with tin-nickel and added a gold strike. This thin gold was cobalt-hardened and the final thickness was still only 3–5 microinches when we finished. About a month after I sent them back to Adler, I got another call. He said, “What the hell did you send me? We’ve completed our reliability testing and your 3–5 microinches on tin-nickel outperforms our 120 microinches of sulfamate nickel on our contacts and other relays.”
Continue reading this conversation in the November 2024 issue of PCB007 Magazine.
Share on:
Suggested Items
Lockheed Martin Reports Q1 2025 Financial Results
04/22/2025 | Lockheed MartinLockheed Martin Corporation reported first quarter 2025 sales of $18.0 billion, compared to $17.2 billion in the first quarter of 2024. Net earnings in the first quarter of 2025 were $1.7 billion, or $7.28 per share, compared to $1.5 billion, or $6.39 per share, in the first quarter of 2024.
Boeing to Sell Portions of Digital Aviation Solutions to Thoma Bravo for $10.55 Billion
04/22/2025 | BoeingBoeing has entered into a definitive agreement to sell portions of its Digital Aviation Solutions business, including its Jeppesen, ForeFlight, AerData and OzRunways assets, to Thoma Bravo, a leading software investment firm.
In-Memory Computing: Revolutionizing Data Processing for the Modern Era
04/21/2025 | Persistence Market ResearchIn a world where milliseconds matter, traditional computing architectures often struggle to keep up with the massive influx of real-time data.
Cicor’s Shareholders Approve All Proposals
04/18/2025 | CicorThe Annual General Meeting approved the 2024 annual report, the annual financial statements, the consolidated financial statements, the report on non-financial matters and the appropriation of available earnings.
Nortech Positioned to Serve Global Markets Amid Tariff Challenges
04/18/2025 | BUSINESS WIRENortech Systems, a global leader in digital connectivity solutions and data management engineering, is strategically positioned to serve customers in Europe and the Asia Pacific region while effectively mitigating the impact of global tariffs and trade challenges.