Posts Tagged ‘packaging’
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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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September 23rd, 2009
Lead-free packaging with gold inks?
This open access paper published in the Journal of Electronic Materials investigated gold nanoparticle inks as potential candidates for lead-free packaging applications. The main advantage of the inks are the very low melting points, good conductivity compared to eutectic solders and excellent thermal stability/electromigration resistance. -
June 1st, 2009
Gold-tin solder process
New Gold-Tin Solder Bonding Process for Wafer-Level Packaging…….
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March 17th, 2009
New gold bonding wire product
As those working in the microelectronics industry will know, wire bonding technology is the most widespread and reliable interconnection technique. Whilst aluminum, copper and their alloys can all be used as wire materials, high purity gold bonding wire remains the material of choice, having been widely used in semiconductor devices since the assembly of semiconductor packages began approximately 40 years ago. Gold is used because of its ductility, low electrical resistance and resistance to oxidation.
Last week W. C. Heraeus announced the launch of Rel-k, a new 99.5% pure gold wire. Rel-k is available in production quantities and is being shown for the first time in public this week at Heraeus’s booth at Semicon China
Richard Holliday
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