Choosing the way to solder the SMT component during PCB plating finish

[jayleung]

Hi, everyone. I am a newbee for the PCB design. I have a simple question about the PCB plating finish.

Actually, the PCB houses offer some option about the final plating finish, with:

leaded solder, lead free solder, deep gold, bare copper, immersion gold, white tin, OSP, Flash Gold, Soft Gold, Carbon Link, Immersion Silver and bondable gold.

My question is:

I do not design the soldermask for the PCB, so which option can be used to solder the SMT component on it with easy effort?

And what are the difference between these options?

Any information or reference will be welcome. Thanks in advances.

 

[minagad]

Re: PCB plating finish

any of these options will do the job, but it depend on the quality of the application. if you are using very high speed , low voltage signals go with gold plated options, if its a regular PCB, the lead free solder will be my choice

 

[sriniv2323]

PCB plating finish

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[banjo]

PCB plating finish

Gold platings are mainly used when you have connectors mounted to the board via press fit. These could be clamp on pogo pin sockets or they could be card edge finger connectors like the edge of a memory module. The gold has a very low oxide rate, so it does not tarnish and degrade the connection.

OSP is an organic covering over the copper that burns off during soldering. I do not recommend it. It has a very limited shelf life. Bare boards with OSP go bad just sitting on the shelf.

Bare copper is also a poor choice. The copper will quickly corrode and cause either assembly problems or problems with corrosion in the field.

Leaded or Lead-free solder is done by putting molten solder on the bare board and then blowing it off with an air knife. This can leave some solder whiskers between fine pitch pads.

Tin is a pretty good choice as it protects the board and makes it easy to solder.

It all depends on the price adder. If you are building lead-free, then I would choose tin or lead-free solder.