Tanaka And Microbonds Announce Strategic Alliance To Release X-Wire Technology

Tokyo and Toronto -- Tanaka Denshi Kogyo K.K. and Microbonds, Inc. announced an alliance to launch a line of insulated gold bonding wires that address the significant interconnect bottlenecks facing the semiconductor industry. Using Microbonds proprietary X-Wire(TM) Technology and Tanaka's leading gold bond wires, this solution is targeted at today's complex manufacturing applications including area array wire bonding, stacked die and rapid prototyping.

"Tanaka is delighted to work with Microbonds to introduce this exciting new development in wire bonding technology, which we believe will significantly extend and expand the dominance of the wire bond industry," said Shinji Shirakawa, General Manager, Technical Development Division of Tanaka Denshi Kogyo K.K. "The X-Wire Technology leverages existing dominant wire-bonding infrastructure and expertise and can be integrated with minimal disruption; yet the unique, insulated approach permits wires to touch and cross, enabling significant increases in interconnect densities for a wide array of new chip and package designs. For users, this technology is easy to use and delivers powerful benefits such as yield improvements, performance enhancements and cost savings."

"Tanaka has a stellar reputation for quality and service in the semiconductor industry," said Craig Geier, President & CEO of Microbonds. "We are honored that Tanaka has agreed to align their research, development, production and distribution capabilities with Microbonds to create a next-generation solution that provides customers benefits above and beyond today's standard bare wire and bump-based interconnect technologies."

The companies are expected to launch the commercial availability of Tanaka X-Wire(TM) by third quarter, 2005.

SOURCE: Microbonds/Tanaka