Author Archive
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March 12th, 2010
Call for papers
Journal of Materials Research has announced a special focus issue for January 2011, featuring new developments in self-assembly and directed assembly of advanced materials. This focus issue will include several invited overview papers, invited feature papers, and original contributions. Papers related to gold nanotechnology will be particularly relevant for this publication, so you should get writing now……..Manuscripts can be submitted via the journal’s website. -
March 10th, 2010
SEMICON China
World Gold Council, is helping to train engineers and chip designers in the technology of wire bonding. At next week’s SEMICON China 2010 we are sponsoring a seminar entitled ‘Materials Science of Wire Bonding & Wire Bond Reliability’ in conjunction with SEMI. This will include best practice in wire bonding technology and materials selection issues. To register for this seminar please click here.
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February 22nd, 2010
Gold Demand Trends
Last week saw the release of WGC’s Gold Demand Trends publication reporting on gold demand for Q4 2009. In the fourth quarter, gold demand for industrial and dental applications recorded its third consecutive quarter-onquarter improvement and its first annual gain in more than two years. Demand totalled 99.7 tonnes, 11% higher than the fourth quarter of 2008. Nevertheless, demand in 2009 was down 16% on 2008 levels. Electronics demand, which for most of the last 18 months has been a severe casualty of the global economic crisis, rebounded strongly in Q4, jumping 25% relative to year earlier levels in a very positive indication that restocking of inventory is taking place on the back of a more optimistic economic outlook. Read more here.
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February 19th, 2010
Semiconductor Packaging News
Over the last few weeks we kicked-off the debate about gold vs copper bonding wire in semiconductor packaging (see here and here).
Semiconductor Packaging News have just featured this interview with me.
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February 15th, 2010
Optical radiation into electrical current
According to this press release, new research has demonstrated the ability to turn light into electrical current using a gold-based nanoscale system. The study, published in the current issue of the journal ACS Nano, describes a system - an array of nano-sized gold – that responds to electromagnetic waves by creating surface plasmons. These induce and project electrical current, a bit like photovoltaic solar cells. The picture here shows the material described in the study. -
February 10th, 2010
Another nanogold start-up
This news release describing the award by The University of Maryland’s Industrial Partnerships Program of $174,420 (for developing a polymer coating for gold nanorods that enables them to survive biological conditions) has alerted me to the fact that there is a new company supplying gold nanorods; start-up company NanoRods LLC. Great to see new companies entering this market….
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February 5th, 2010
Oxidized gold thin films
This is an area of research I wasn’t previously familiar with…oxidised thin films. They are claimed to have been shown to function as a direct drop-in replacement for the normal indium tin oxide anode in high-performance flexible organic light-emitting diodes fabricated on plastic substrates (as shown). The authors of this research claim the thin films offer a new materials technology for roll-to-roll processing of next-generation flexible organic optoelectronics. Which could be used in applications such as solid-state lighting. Promising stuff…. -
February 3rd, 2010
Copper wire bonding – do the cost savings add up?
I’ve just received a copy of the new edition of George G. Harman’s book (or ‘bible’) Wire Bonding in Microelectronics. George is widely considered to be the world’s foremost authority on wire bonding. I’d like to quote a passage from the book which is relevant to the ‘gold versus copper’ bonding wire debate (which I blogged on last week).” There is no question copper is a cheaper material but also one that brings new challenges to the bonding engineer. It may be a cost effective process in the eyes of a product manager but when the extra care and attention is required , it is weighed against the existing gold process and then we should ask ourselves, are the net savings worthwhile?”
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January 29th, 2010
Concerns over shift from gold to copper bonding wire
There has been a lot of media coverage (see here and here for examples) of this week’s announcement of the results of a survey, conducted by SEMI, the global semiconductor industry association, which shows the semiconductor industry has serious reservations about the reliability and yield of copper bonding wire.
This global survey does show that an increasing number of companies are considering using copper for some new products – but the results of this survey show that there are still serious reservations in the industry over the use of copper wire in packaging technology. It is clear that gold has proven reliability and a track record – industry professionals still recognise this. We plan to undertake further research to discover the extent of the difference in reliability of gold versus copper over the coming months……
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January 22nd, 2010
Fault current limiters using gold-alloy coatings
Some months ago I blogged on the use of superconductors for fault current limiters devices. These require the use of a metallic shunt top layer to give a degree of thermal and electrical protection should a fault in the superconducting tape develop. This metallic layer is typically 50-100nm thick and must be resistant to oxidation at the high temperatures which can arise during both processing steps and in service during current overload situation. It must also serve as a barrier to prevent ingress of moisture into the YBCO superconductor. This story (although from last year – I’ve only just been told about here in Japan) shows the use of silver-gold alloy layers in a practical example of this technology.
Richard Holliday
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