Plating of Ceramic Components for Surface Mounting Assembly

To permit multilayer ceramic capacitors to be soldered directly onto printed circuit boards and other components, the terminations are plated with a barrier layer (usually nickel) followed by either pure tin or a tin‐lead alloy. Pertinent properties of deposits and solutions are discussed and these include deposit thickness requirements, internal stress, solderability, effects of cross‐contamination, variations of tin‐lead composition with operating parameters and effluent treatment.