Spec Plating Inc history

In 1955, electroless copper was being used for PTH circuits by an East Coast printed circuit shop, utilizing a home-brew formulation that Narcus was instrumental in developing.

At the 1957 AES Annual Convention, Cahill30 described his success in producing autocatalytic chemical reduction of copper from alkaline copper tartrate baths using formaldehyde as the reducing agent.

In 1958, a colloidal tin-palladium one-step catalyst100 was commercially introduced.

In 1960, Agens33 reported that bubbling air stabilized electroless copper baths, presumably by oxidizing cuprous oxide particles, thereby preventing the formation of destabilizing catalytic nuclei.

Surface active agents are often included in bath formulations to help improve deposit qualities, having been suggested by Lukes40 in 1961.

In 1962, Fisher and Chilton50 used electroless cobalt-phosphorus processes to produce high-coercive-force deposits useful for high-density recording.

K.M. Gorbunova and A.A. Nikiforova, Physiochemical Principles of Nickel Plating, Israel Program for Scientific Translations, Jerusalem, 1963; TT 63-1-1003.

Nickel-cobalt-phosphorus alloy deposits may be produced from alkaline baths in all proportions of cobalt and nickel, since each metal is independently capable of electroless deposition. For example, Pearlstein and Weightman69 reported in 1965 that up to 20 percent tungsten, 46 percent rhenium, 15 percent zinc or 2 percent tin can be codeposited with electroless nickel-phosphorus.

In 1966, Schmeckenbecher75 reported that electroless nickel-iron alloys have magnetic properties useful for information storage.

F. Pearlstein and R.F. Weightman, Plating, 54, 714 (1967).

Technical Bulletin, "The Engineering Properties of Nickel," The International Nickel Co., New York, NY 10004 (1971).

C.R. Shipley Jr., L.H. Shipley, M. Gulla and O.B. Dutkewych, United States patent 3,728,137 (1973).

W.V. Hough, J.L. Little and K.E. Warheit, United States patent 4,255,194 (1981).

In 1982, a paper by Molenaar93 described a wide range of electroless gold-copper alloys, containing up to 98 percent gold, using formaldehyde as the reducing agent.

In 1983, Baudrand21 summarized prospective uses for electroless nickel-boron.