Relationship between microstructure homogeneity and bonding stability of ultrafine gold wire

Inhomogeneous microtexture evolution during the cold drawing process usually results in lean, sway, or sweep failure. The <111> longitudinal fiber texture has higher stiffness than the <100> texture and its proportion and distribution in the cross-section are critical for the bonding stability of fine gold wire. We investigated the inhomogeneous microtexture evolution of gold wire that was cold drawn through an asymmetric diamond die. In this study, the distributions of the <111> and <100> textures in a 20 μm diameter fine gold wire are the variables and their effects on the bonding stability of the wire were estimated by electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) and finite element method (FEM) simulations. The use of a focused ion beam apparatus enabled a high quality of band contrast of the EBSD to be achieved in the exact half cross-sectional area of the fine gold wire. The detailed three-dimensional FEM results show that the asymmetric distribution of the textures plays a crucial role in increasing the spatial displacement of the gold bonding wire.