Industrial gold plating is indispensable for electronic and/or semiconductor components.Purposes and applications of gold plating are summarized in the [Table].

Although, for some industrial gold plating, such as on IC headers, stems, and lead frames, high-purity gold (99.7% or higher) may be used, for most cases, alloy plating is applied by combining other metals according to the required hardness and wear resistance, for example, of the plating film.
Metal, such as silver, copper, nickel, cobalt or indium, is added in an amount of about0.1 to 0.5% as an alloying element. Such gold alloy plating is said to be twice as hard as pure gold plating and to have three times the abrasion-resistance.