The present invention relates generally to bond wire feed systems and more particularly, to an automatic feeding and threading system for a wire bonding machine.
Semiconductor integrated circuits or dies are continually decreasing in size and therefore the diameter of the bond wires used during interconnecting semiconductor die electrodes to external leads is also shrinking. As a result of this shrinking, manual wire threading during bond wire spool changing, or wire bond trouble shooting, becomes more time consuming for operators.
In addition to the reduced diameters of bond wires, there is a move towards palladium coated copper bond wires, which are difficult to distinguish from the background of a bonding machine. As a result, damage to die electrodes may occur when wire bonding is attempted when an undetected insufficient bond wire length protrudes through the capillary welding tube. This insufficient bond wire length (short tail or no tail) is caused when the bond wire does not protrude sufficiently from the end of the capillary bonding head after a successful bond.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to at least alleviate one of the problems associated with bond wire feeding.