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Abstract Preview
Here is the abstract you requested from the PM_2010 technical program page. This is the original abstract submitted by the author. Any changes to the technical content of the final manuscript published by IMAPS or the presentation that is given during the event is done by the author, not IMAPS.
| Gold: The High Reliability Choice in Semiconductor Packaging |
| Keywords: Wire Bonding, Interconnection, Recycling |
| The reliability of gold in microelectronic packaging makes it the standard, by which all other materials must be judged. Even though the price of gold has risen significantly in this decade the usage of gold in microelectronic packaging has continued to grow.
Efforts to make the most cost-effective usage of gold through spot plating, plating thickness reduction and the usage of thinner bonding wire have been successful. Gold wire remains the main wire material for ball bonding in microelectronics assembly and has proven reliable in billions of devices over many years. However, high gold prices are increasingly forcing a shift towards cheaper copper wire, despite concerns over reliability. Copper wire is now approaching 5% of the entire bonding wire market and the capability to bond copper is a requirement for almost all high-speed automatic bonders. It is being adopted in most market segments, from fine-pitched high end applications to power and QFN devices. As a result there is a need to obtain higher quality reliability data with gold and copper wires supported by state of the art analytical methods. This will help quantify and validate the relative merits of the two metals.
Design-for-recycling should also be an important consideration in material selection. The precious metals (mainly gold) constitute a very substantial proportion of the material value of waste electronic and electrical equipment (WEEE) and gold can be considered as a key component of the economic viability of WEEE recycling
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Lee Levine, President
Process Solutions Consulting Inc
New Tripoli, PA
USA |
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