XTRONIC®: Enabler of Improved Performance with Reduced Precious Metal Usage in Microelectronics

XTRONIC®, a tailored nanocrystalline nickel alloy, has been qualified as a new metal barrier layer replacing pure nickel in many traditional hard and soft gold applications. XTRONIC is produced using a proprietary combination of electroplating chemistry and pulse-reverse applied current waveforms that enables dynamic control of the deposited material's composition and grain structure. The resulting deposits have been shown to provide superior performance in a variety of areas that are critical to microelectronics. These improved performance metrics include resistance to corrosive environments, wear durability, wire bonding, and temperature aging performance. The novel suites of properties possible provide enhanced performance for microelectronics, and can also enable equivalent or improved overall performance even with significant reductions of precious metal use in many applications. Proven areas of application include high-speed backplane connectors and multiple printed circuit board applications such a...