Effect of Conduction Pre-heating in Au-Al Thermosonic Wire Bonding

This paper presents the recent study by investigating the vital responses of wire bonding with the application of conduction pre-heating. It is observed through literature reviews that, the effect of pre-heating has not been completely explored to enable the successful application of pre-heating during wire bonding. The aim of wire bonding is to form quality and reliable solid-state bonds to interconnect metals such as gold wires to metalized pads deposited on silicon integrated circuits. Typically, there are 3 main wire bonding techniques applied in the industry; Thermo-compression, Ultrasonic and Thermosonic. This experiment utilizes the most common and widely used platform which is thermosonic bonding. This technique is explored with the application of conduction pre-heating along with heat on the bonding site, ultrasonic energy and force on an Au-Al system. Sixteen groups of bonding conditions which include eight hundred data points of shear strength at various temperature settings were compared to establish the relationship between bonding strength and the application of conduction pre-heating. The results of this study will clearly indicate the effects of applied conduction pre-heating towards bonding strength which may further produce a robust wire bonding system.