Gold electroplating is a trusted finishing solution for manufacturers who require exceptional performance, reliability, and longevity from their components. Known for its superior electrical conductivity, outstanding corrosion resistance, gold plating is used across a wide range of industries and applications.
Below, we explore the key properties that make gold electroplating such a valuable solution.
How Gold Plating Improves Performance and Longevity
Gold plating is a common solution for a variety of industries, being used in everything from electronic connectors and printed circuit boards to precision industrial parts and beyond, making the applications for gold plating virtually endless.
Some of the most common advantages of using gold plating include:
- Corrosion resistance – Gold is a noble metal and does not oxidize under normal atmospheric conditions. Unlike many base metals, it does not form surface oxides that increase contact resistance or degrade performance over time. This makes gold plating ideal for high-reliability applications requiring long-term stability in humid, corrosive, or chemically exposed environments.
- Stable electrical conductivity – While silver and copper have higher intrinsic conductivity, gold provides consistently low and predictable contact resistance because it does not tarnish or oxidize. This makes it especially desirable for connectors, terminals, RF components, and other low-voltage/low-current applications where signal integrity and reliability are critical.
- Excellent Solderability & Bondability – Gold plating provides an oxide-free surface that supports excellent solderability. It is widely used in printed circuit boards, semiconductor components, and microelectronic assemblies where clean metallurgical interfaces are essential.
- Ductility & Contact Reliability – Golds ductility allows mating surfaces to conform under contact pressure, increasing true contact area and reducing signal loss. This property improves reliability in repeated engagement applications and helps minimize fretting corrosion in dynamic electrical interfaces.
- Wear resistance (When Specified as Hard Gold) – Pure gold is relatively soft. However, hard gold deposits (alloyed with cobalt or nickel) significantly increase surface hardness and wear resistance. This makes gold plating suitable for high cycle contact applications such as connectors and spring contacts.
Hard and Soft Gold Plating Solutions
At General Metal Finishing, we offer both hard and soft gold plating. Each approach has its own benefits and applications, and our team is ready to find the best solution based on your needs. When deciding, it’s important to know the needs for wear resistance and electrical performance of a component, as well as the environment your parts need to operate in. Key details about each process include:
- Hard gold plating – Hard gold plating is used when the gold is alloyed with another robust metal like nickel or cobalt to increase the hardness of the metal. The resulting material is suited for applications that feature mechanical stress or repeated contact. This solution is ideal for applications involving switches, connectors and contacts.
- Soft gold plating – Soft gold plating results in a final material that is composed of nearly pure gold. It offers exceptional conductivity and solderability, which makes it well suited for applications involving microelectronics, wire bonding, semiconductor packaging, and more.
Our Industry Qualifications
Whether you need plating for the aerospace, electronics, industrial, or medical industries, our team is ready to find a solution and deliver. We have over 50 years of proven experience and continue to invest in quality, technology, and talent to continue our ongoing commitment to first-rate work and customer satisfaction.
Our facility has over 50,000 square feet of manufacturing space, we are able to handle both high-volume production runs and specialized projects, and we have two plating facilities for barrel plating, rack plating, and vibratory plating. Plus, our team is backed by certifications you can trust, including Nadcap, ISO 9001, and ISO 13485, which reflects our dedication to quality standards. Last but not least, we pride ourselves on having more than 110 highly trained service professionals who apply their considerable expertise to each project they work on.
Contact Our Team to Get Started!
Ready to get a metal plating solution started? Request a quote or talk with our team to discuss your application and requirements.
