Friday, November 4, 2022

Samsung use NCD ALD for wirebonding alternatives to expensive Gold

According to a recent article by TheElec, Samsung has developed a new chip packaging technology with its key partners for automotive chips. The company employs an aluminum oxide (Al2O3) coating bonding wire technology with improved reliability and insulation compared to previous bonding wires.

Bonding wires connect the I/Os with the lead frame or printed circuit boards. Most of them in the past have been made with gold (Au) as they are flexible and conductive. But as gold prices continue to rise, many companies attempt to mix them with silver (Ag) or copper (Cu). However,  these mixed materials usually have weak adhesiveness with their coating materials. This is unacceptable for chips aimed at automobiles as they are exposed to high-temperature and high-humidity environments.

Samsung’s aluminum alternative, which it is developing with Electron, NCD and LT Metal, doesn’t have this weakness since the aluminum oxide is coated at nanometer thinness onto the metal used as wire. Aluminum oxide bonds well with insulating coating materials that use epoxy. The precursors used to coat the aluminum oxide such as tri-metal aluminum (TMA) are also relatively cheap and used in HVM since a long time.



Insulated, Passivated & Adhesively-Promoted Bond WireUsing All-in-One Al2O3 Coating

Soojae Park(1), Jonghyun Lee(1), Chulhyung Cho(1), Namhoon Kim(1), Yongje Lee(1), Sichun Seo(1), Manho Kim(1), Youngkwon Yoon(1), EulgiMin(2), Kyujung Choi(2), Sang-Hoon Lee(3) Hong-Sik Nam(3),Monghyun Cho(4) & Jeongtak Moon(4),(1)Samsung Electronics Company130 Samsung-Ro, Yungtong-Gu, Suwon-Si, Gyunggi-Do, Republic of Korea(2)NCD Co., Ltd.(3)LT Metal, Ltd.(4)MK Electron Co., Ltd. (2) (PDF) Insulated, Passivated & Adhesively-Promoted Bond Wire Using All-in-One Al2O3 Coating. Available from:

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