The future of gold in electronics

Gold-based materials have been a mainstay of the electronics and semiconductor industry since the physics was just a laboratory curiosity. Gold is the workhorse material in wire bond, flip chip and off wafer interconnections due to its corrosion resistance, ability to form metallurgical bonds by soldering or cold welding, and ease of fabrication. As the electronics and semiconductor industries grew, so did the use, of gold in spite of the feature size reduction so elegantly demonstrated in Moore's law. However, several revolutions in the Silicon miracle are threatening gold's place as the material of choice. Although cost is always an issue, the limitations are associated with the chemistry of gold based alloys. Will gold remain? Emerging requirements of bioelectronics, photonics and power requirements in conventional device represent new opportunities for gold to shine. Additionally, as the world market demand for electronic, semiconducting, bio-electronic and photonic technology increases, given the right technology, gold still can provide value proposition.