Archive for the ‘Electronics’ Category
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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 12th, 2010
Gold for good – a new article from the WGC
Yesterday we released a new publication written by the World Gold Council and Cientifica called ‘Gold for good – gold and nanotechnology in the age of innovation’. The article, which is freely available on both the WGC and Cientifica websites, discusses the past, present and future of gold-based nanotechnology, focusing on key areas in medicine, the environment and technology.I am attending the 2010 Nanotech Japan event in Tokyo next week where I will be launching the article, and will follow this with a trip to the ACS spring meeting in California towards the end of March. Feel free to drop me a line if you are attending either event, I’d be happy to discuss any aspect of the WGCs activities, including our funding and investment programmes.
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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.
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January 20th, 2010
Self-assembling electronic devices
A fascinating, and potentially very important, paper has just been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the prestigious US journal. The article details a simple and cheap way to create self-assembling electronic devices utilising the interfaces naturally created between silicone oil, water and a substrate. By manipulating these hydrophobic/hydrophilic interfaces (and the materials they come into contact with) the team have been able build a series of devices, culminating in a flexible monocrystalline silicon solar cell.This is a really exciting step forward, and we congratulate the authors on the paper. The real promise is in the technology’s applicability across a wide range of materials, ranging from metal to plastic.
The paper has received considerable media coverage, including an article on the BBC website.
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January 11th, 2010
Patenting nanotechnologies
I’m a big fan of the nano patents and innovations blog, and they have kicked off the year with an eye-opening post regarding the sheer volume of patent activity in the field of nanotechnology. In the first week of 2010, approximately 102 nano-related patents were identified, many filed by some of the world’s leading names including Sony, Samsung, Roche and Pfizer.
The blog author determined that the majority of these patents are devoted to nanomaterials and nanofabrication processes for the semiconductor industry. However, biomedical applications were also well represented. Gold is a prominent material in both of these areas, more details of which can be found on our scientific website
Richard Holliday
Trevor Keel
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