Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!sco!gorn!logo From: logo@gorn.santa-cruz.ca.us (David Kiviat) Newsgroups: sci.electronics Subject: Re: Which is a better conductor: gold or silver? Keywords: gold, silver, palladium, plating Message-ID: <673@gorn.santa-cruz.ca.us> Date: 6 Sep 89 04:18:50 GMT References: <14172@swan.ulowell.edu> <19729@louie.udel.EDU> <20483@cup.portal.com> <996@maestro.htsa.aha.nl> <1986@kodak.UUCP> <23544@quack Reply-To: logo@gorn.santa-cruz.ca.us (David Kiviat) Organization: The Planet Gorn Lines: 12 Hi! This discussion reminds me of a question I have had for many years since I worked in a final test department of a large chipmaker. The company decided they wanted to replace gold as the substrate (or was it the preform- I forget-it's been a long time) with silver. They put a lot of research into it and seemed to pull it off. The only problem I remember was that we had to centrifuge all those chips and a fairly high percentage of them went kabloey in the process. At the time we were told that despite the higher losses the cost savings made the change worthwhile. My question is did this catch on in the industry or is using silver instead of gold to hold the die in place now a rare thing?