random fun fact we learned yesterday: the gold in ENIG finished boards is not there to be the thing that the solder wets and sticks to, it's only there to protect the nickel (which is a metal with very good wettability)
the gold layer in ENIG isn't as thin as it is to save cost, though that's part of it--it's intended to completely dissolve into the solder, exposing fresh nickel for the solder to wet
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@Felthry why do they plate it in gold and not just solder
@noiob I will note also that the amount of gold used in ENIG is incredibly tiny, the plating thickness is usually specified as 1 μ" which is a horrible unit, but which equates to somewhere around 100 gold atoms of thickness
so "gold is expensive" isn't really a major concern here, when you need so little of it to prevent the nickel from oxidizing
-F
@noiob we've seen gold-plated *TOSLINK* cables
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@noiob you know, optical fiber. well known for being enhanced by gold plating
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@Felthry well, the plating is more for optics anyways
@Felthry no, I get that, gold plating is cheap, see shitty HDMI cables