At a Loss

摘要

Leaching of metallized termination: a thing of the past or still a problem? If we step back a few years to the introduction of surface mount, leaching of component terminations was an issue. This was overcome by plating nickel as a barrier layer onto the silver/ palladium paste end caps. Nickel has a much lower dissolution rate during soldering, so leaching was virtually eliminated as a problem in the industry. An additional benefit the barrier plating provided is a longer solderability life; this was seen when comparing the suppliers that offered the barrier layer and those that did not. Some suppliers did not implement the use of nickel over plating, or the plating was so thin, they experienced problems with termination loss at elevated temperatures.