WILLOW GROVE, PA --  Kulicke & Soffa Industries and Microbonds Inc. (a private Canadian corporation) will align the technological roadmaps of Microbonds' new insulated gold wire bonding products and processes -- called X-Wire Technology -- with the Maxum series wire bonders from K&S.

X-Wire technology addresses interconnect challenges arising from the increasingly complex single and stacked die packaging designs of ICs. 

Christian Rheault, K&S VP of ball bonders, said, "The potential to shrink package size, increase performance, reduce costs and enhance reliability using Microbonds' X-Wire Technology within the established wire bonding assembly environment is a very intriguing development that we are delighted to support for the benefit of our customers and the industry."

According to a press release, preliminary testing at K&S' R&D facilities using the insulated bond wire with the wire bonders have produced successful results with some yield improvements.

Craig Geier, president and CEO of Microbonds, said, "As traditional packaging technologies have inherent limitations, our customers are seeking new solutions to address their interconnect challenges. The integration of our X-Wire Technology with the leading advanced K&S platform of wire bonding technologies will provide customers new flexibility in the development of high performance-to-cost packaged ICs."