Category: Manufacturing New Trends in Wire Bond Packaging TASA ID: 4595 As new high-speed products with ever-increasing capabilities are developed and introduced into the market, new advanced IC packaging designs and methods also must be developed to meet these new products’ requirements. New advanced packages are being designed to maximize I/O numbers, minimize wire bond loop length, and provide System-In-Package (SiP) performance. Stacked die packages, providing (SiP) performance, are already the mainstream of cellular phone manufacturing. Wire bonded Lead-On-Chip (LOC, FBGA) packages are the largest production volume portion of the DDR I memory market, and will be the dominant package type through the DDR II generation1. Read more
Category: Manufacturing Should We Pull Test and Shear Test Fine-Pitch Wedge and Ribbon Bonds? TASA ID: 4595 The wire bond pull test and shear test are widely used to evaluate and control the quality of ball bonds—fine pitch and otherwise. The shear test is the only method that adequately evaluates the strength of the weld. The pull test cannot test the weld because the welded cross section is normally significantly larger and stronger than that of the wire. Read more
Category: Manufacturing Very Fine Pitch Wire Bonding: Re-Examining Wire, Bonding Tool and Wire Bonder Interrelationships for Optimum Process Capability TASA ID: 4595 Through continuous improvements, wire bonding remains the dominant interconnection method. The demand to reduce die size and increase functionality (conserving valuable silicon real estate and increasing the number of interconnects) continues. This has accelerated a decrease in the pitch and size of interconnects. Today’s leading edge production devices are gold ball bonded with 60 mm (bond pad) pitch and wedge bonded with 50 mm pitch. In the near future, gold ball bonding will approach 40 mm pitch and wedge bonding will approach 30 mm. As the pitch and size of the interconnections (bond pads) have decreased, the interrelationship of the various process inputs on each other has increased. Read more
Category: Entertainment, Financial/Economic, Lost Wages Economic Damage Claims in the Entertainment Industry - Speculative or Beyond a Reasonable Certainty TASA ID: 3919 The large majority of lawsuits that involve individuals in the entertainment industry revolve around lost wages or fees. These claims often allege millions of dollars in lost earnings depending on the role the person plays within the industry. Given the exorbitant amount that some actors, writers, directors and producers earn, it's easy to understand how often these claims get made. However, the operative word in this scenario is some. Read more
Category: Employment, Lost Wages, Personal Injury Use of Vocational Experts in Disability Determination TASA ID: 540 No longer is it permissible to determine disability solely based on the percentage of impairment as dictated by the AMA Guides. Ideally, the physical and psychological limitations that are imposed by an accident and/or disease must now be translated into the loss of specific vocational opportunity Read more
