Gold Innovations Blog

The use of copper wire – as a replacement for gold wire – in the semiconductor wire bonding process, is a growing trend recently highlighted by both precious metals consultancy GFMS and electronics association SEMI in separate reports. The extent to which this trend continues will depend on a number of factors including the price of gold, improvements to the gold bonding wire process and the ability of the semiconductor supply chain to overcome the remaining technical challenges in using copper wire (eg slower bonding speeds). The very latest on the state of this ‘battle’ can be found at the forthcoming workshop on wire bonding by IMAPS.