Improved cost management with gold alternatives

Interconnects on a chip

Silver (Ag) alloy and Copper, Palladium Coated Copper (PCC) wires have emerged as alternatives to gold bond wires. Silver alloy offers properties like those of gold with a cost similar to PCC. Copper wire offers a significant cost advantage over gold and is an excellent replacement due to similar electrical properties.

Silver Alloy Wirebond Key
Features & Benefits

  • Ag-Alloy wire is softer than Cu wire resulting in lower Al-Splash and lower risk of bond pad damage
  • Ag-Alloy wire has a wide process window that improves manufacturability for devices with fragile bond pad structures
  • Ag-Alloy wire is the best low-cost replacement for applications that need:
    • Die-to-die bonding, waterfall bonding and very thin Al pad
    • Ultra-fine bond pad pitch (BPP) and small bond pad openings (BPO) with less Al splash
    • Ultra-low loop height
  • Ag alloy has higher resistivity than Au and PCC

Copper Wirebond Key
Features & Benefits

  • Significant cost advantage over gold wire
  • Copper is an attractive replacement material for Au because of its good electrical & thermal performance
  • Amkor has a long & wide history of Cu wire process
    • 20+ years of experience (development to HVM)
    • Qualified on 0.6-2.0 mils diameter Cu wire
    • Under development: >2 mils dia Cu wire
  • Mass production on both leadframe & laminate products
  • Cu wire is supported in all Amkor worldwide factories with mass production since 2006
  • Amkor worldwide Cu wire BOM/BKMs established

Questions?

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