Gold Plating Artwork

[Falcon69]

I have a question.

Regardless of what program is being used...

Say you have a PCB you want manufactured, on this PCB you have some artwork or Logo or words or something, doesn't matter, can even be that little open hardware design symbol....anyway......

When the manufacturers do their gold plating process, how is it done?

If I do a piece of art work and say it is an area without soldermask and it is a copper pour layer underneath...will that area be gold plated when it goes through the gold plating process? Or only the areas that are 'PADS' or "FINGERS' or 'THROUGH HOLES' that the gerbers say will be gold plated only?

I'm trying to design something that will really stand out. I want a flat black PCB and I think the gold plated logo would really look nice on it.

Thanks in advance.

[Rerouter]

What you are thinking of is selective gold plating, generally for things like RAM finger contacts, for generic PCB's its a full board immersion, so leaving something exposed would result in it being plated.

[Falcon69]

So they just dip the whole pcb into the solution of gold and wherever the solder mask is NOT...the gold sticks too?

[Fortran]

Correct.  Assuming there's copper underneath.

[Falcon69]

okay, cool. thank you.

[amitchell]

Yeah just set the layer to Tstop or Bstop. I do it all the time for the board name, my name, revision number and year. It looks slick.

[T3sl4co1l]

I also like to do text, in negative copper, and positive silk right over top.  The silk sits down in the depression where the copper was.  It's flat, durable, and cannot be erased without destroying the copper!

Tim

[Falcon69]

what do you mean by negative copper?

And yes, I know about the registration error with the silk screen. Another reason why I am trying to avoid it. Also, it's ugly and doesn't look very clean. It's always off and sometimes (and usually often) unreadable for smaller text.

[Falcon69]

oh, okay, thats what I was talking about before, about gold plating that if it is exposed, like the pads are. So that will be gold plated as well.

[T3sl4co1l]

Negative copper, as in, a cutout in the shape of the text.

Just to demonstrate, using my corporate logo:



Copper height exaggerated to illustrate the cutout, and soldermask opening to show the underlying copper (which shows as yellow here, suggesting ENIG or the like).

As mentioned, all exposed metal surfaces get the same plating, whatever it is (bare / OSP, tin or solder, gold, silver..), unless you wish to use a custom process with masking and extra steps that gives you different platings by area (be willing to pay for it!).  Of which, gold fingers is probably the most common, and isn't terrifyingly expensive, but don't expect it on a cheap proto service!

Different colored solder mask regions is also an option, but again, as a custom process, with extra steps, be prepared to pay for it.

Tim

[Psi]

if you want gold logo/text you need to

1) Tell the PCB house you want ENIG
2) have the logo/text on both the copper layer and on the solder mask layer in the same location.