Ingemar, You raise an interesting point. Although I can not say we have duplicated your findings, it would be logical to expect the 'already made' wire bonds to act as miniature antennae. The good/bad news is that usually all the package leads are shorted together by tie bars, etc. at this point in the process, and the package and leads are firmly mechanically clamped into a thermally (and capacitively) massive heat stage - which is at ground potential. I might caution that possibly your scope probe either by physical location or size does not realistically represent a wire bond - one way or another. Many times we will bond the Vss & Vdd pads first. One could probably take both sides of the argument as to whether that really makes a difference in all cases. Keeping the EFO away from the work is ultimately limited by machine mechanics. Just think of all the ga-zillion IC's bonded in this manner in the last 15-20 years. Maybe we should go back to the ol' hydrogen gas flame-off. Can you imagine the bonding rate reduction that would make - and all the liability and safety issues that it would raise nowadays?? Keep us posted. Steve Creswick - CTS At 12:50 PM 5/31/00 +0200, you wrote: >Anyone in the club who have heard if the flameoff can induce voltage in the material that you bond on?. E.g. we have checked with an osc probe and found peaks up to 50V when the flame goes off. Some semi chips without I/O guards seem to get dizzy. Anyone with experience? >Ingemar Hernefjord >Ericsson Microwave Systems > >############################################################## >TechNet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c >############################################################## >To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in >the body: >To subscribe: SUBSCRIBE TECHNET <your full name> >To unsubscribe: SIGNOFF TECHNET >############################################################## >Please visit IPC web site (http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm) for additional >information. >If you need assistance - contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or >847-509-9700 ext.5315 >############################################################## > > ############################################################## TechNet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c ############################################################## To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the body: To subscribe: SUBSCRIBE TECHNET <your full name> To unsubscribe: SIGNOFF TECHNET ############################################################## Please visit IPC web site (http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm) for additional information. If you need assistance - contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5315 ##############################################################