Unconventional applications of wire bonding create opportunities for microsystem integration

• Automatic wire bonding is a highly mature, cost-efficient and broadly available back-endprocess, intended to create electrical interconnections in semiconductor chip packaging. Modern production wire-bonding tools can bond wires with speeds of up to 30 bonds per second with placement accuracies of better than 2 mu m, and the ability to form each wire individually into a desired shape. These features render wire bonding a versatile tool also for integrating wires in applications other than electrical interconnections. Wire bonding has been adapted and used to implement a variety of innovative microstructures. This paper reviews unconventional uses and applications of wire bonding that have been reported in the literature. The used wire-bonding techniques and materials are discussed, and the implemented applications are presented. They include the realization and integration of coils, transformers, inductors, antennas, electrodes, through silicon vias, plugs, liquid and vacuum seals, plastic fibers, shape memory alloy actuators, energy harvesters and sensors.

Nyckelord

Electrical interconnections

Energy Harvester

Placement accuracy

Plastic fibers

Semiconductor chips

Shape memory alloy actuators

Through silicon vias

Versatile tools

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