Tin or Gold being used in most DDR2 RAM?

2048Megabytes

2048Megabytes

Active Member
We were discussing this in my class today. We believe more tin is being used in modern Double Data Rate 2 RAM leads than gold. Is this true? I tried to look it up on the internet but can't find it. Anyone have a source?
 
I don't have a source, but I do know that it would be concurrent with motherboard contact makeup. E.G mixing a tin plated DIMM with gold plated contacts on the motherboard is not the best situation, so if more DDR2 is using tin then it stands to reason more motherboards are using cheaper tin as well.

Might not help, but I'd thought I'd put it in.
 
Do you mean the the contacts to the motherboard or on the physical chips? If it's the contacts they are at least gold plated, as for the rest, then I'd say tin (main component in solder)
 
We were discussing it and believe RAM modules have tin contacts. Is this true?
I would think so since random access memory is getting so low in price.

Are the contacts on most modern motherboards inside RAM slots also tin?

And it is bad to mix tin and gold contacts since it causes a chemical reaction which corrodes the tin contacts eventually.
 
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Cromewell said:
Why/how would gold corrode tin?
Click to expand...

This is what it states in the book "A+ Guide to Hardware Fourth Edition" written by Jean Andrews:

"You should match tin leads to tin connectors and gold leads to gold connectors to prevent a chemical reaction between the two metals, which can cause corrosion."
 
I'd just heard mismatched contacts can lead to memory reliability and failure problem. The corrosion would of course lead to failure.

2048Megabytes said:
We were discussing it and believe RAM modules have tin contacts. Is this true?

Are the contacts on most modern motherboards inside RAM slots also tin?
Click to expand...

Either tin or gold.

I would have thought so considering what I know about it; Tin isn't the better, but under certain situations can equal gold in effectiveness. It also being cheaper, makes for the provident option. Searching google comes up with many results, of the few I checked through the only mention I could find as to the extant of modern motherboards using gold/tin is this:

http://books.google.com/books?id=k7...9OA3IZc&sig=YxrfFGRX9kYUHyFF3-MAuGwrlik&hl=en

A book from 2006 stating most modern motherboards have gold plated motherboard contacts. This would support Gold plated DIMM contacts over tin as majority..
 
Thank you for the information Hermeslyre. It appears gold is being used more than tin on motherboard contacts than tin contacts.

Here is a question I pose to anyone who can answer. Can anyone find any modern RAM being sold today that uses tin contacts?
 
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