wiredinUSA April 2013

INDEX

OPM technology for high yield copper wire bonding

OPM protected pads have provided robust protection of the circuits underneath, and the electronic performance of the device. We believe that IC designers will be able to utilize the benefits of Elite OPM to enable the design of smaller devices without package-related concerns."

FlipChip International (FCI) has launched Elite™ OPM technology, providing a wider process window for copper wire bonding to support the move away from using expensive gold wire. OPM technology will be available from FlipChip Millennium Shanghai facility (FCMS), a subsidiary of FCI, and will provide landing pad protection of the underlying semiconductor device for a broad variety of semiconductor devices and technology nodes. Ted Tessier , CTOof FCI, said: "This...patented solution originated in FCI's corporate R and D center in Phoenix, Arizona and was further deployed into volume manufacturing at our Shanghai FCMS wafer bumping facility. “Asaresultof theclosecollaborationwithour subsidiary Millennium Microtech Shanghai (MMS) and its wire bonded package customers, Elite OPM is being introduced to address ongoing cost reduction needs and critical reliability concerns, such as pad cratering and pad peeling. The rugged structural characteristics of Elite OPM enhanced pads ensure crater-free copper wire bonding with high yields in mass production. "We are also currently evaluating IC devices designed with circuit-under-pads, which is a common miniaturization design structure. Based on our initial results, the

Few-mode fibers series

OFS, designer, manufacturer and supplier of fiber optic network products, has launched a series of few-mode fibers designed for space division multiplexing. "Few-mode fibers can be used for space division multiplexing where information is transmitted simultaneously on several modes, thereby further increasing the transmission capacity of an optical fiber," says Robert Lingle Jr, director of fiber design and systems research at OFS. "Spatial multiplexing on few-mode fibers is one of the very hot research topics at this year's Optical Fiber Communication Conference," he added. Three versions of the few-mode fibers are available: a two-mode fiber with graded-index core, which has a low differential group delay; a step-index two-modefiber;andastep-index four-mode fiber.

"The OFS few-mode fibers have been developed as a part of OFS participation

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