particularly those used in connection with the formation of solder balls get scratched either from blading of metal into mold cavities or from normal handling small scratches may be a nuisance or lead to false defects that create confusion during inspection overtime scratches develop into cracks which may become catastrophic failures that lead to mold breakage in addition large scratches or gouges can behave like a cavity capturing and transferring solder between adjacent mold cavities towards that end it is desirable to form a mold having a surface that is resistant to scratches cracking damage and other defects as best shown in fig1 5 a mold substrate constructed in accordance with an exemplary embodiment is indicated generally at 2 mold substrate 2 is formed preferably from borosilicate glass bsg and includes a main body 4 having a first substantially planar surface 6 that extends to a second substantially planar surface 8 through an intermediate portion 10 in accordance with an exemplary embodiment a protective layer 20 of mold protection material is deposited upon first substantially planar surface 6 as shown in fig2 mold protection material can take on a variety of forms such as sic diamond like carbon dlc si 3 n 4 ticn tin al 2 o 3 and polytetraflouroethylene ptfe of course other materials having scratch resistant properties can also be used protective layer 20 is deposited upon first substantially planar surface 6 using a method such as chemical vapor deposition cvd of course other methods such as physical vapor deposition pvd can also be used to deposit the protective layer onto substrate 2 after depositing the mold protection material onto substrate 2 forming mold protective layer 20 a photo resist layer 30 is applied.