Rick C <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Friday, January 28, 2022 at 10:07:18 AM UTC-4, Tom Del Rosso wrote:
>> Jan Panteltje wrote:
>> > This 22-year-old builds chips in his parents\u2019 garage
>> > https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/01/this-22-year-old-builds-chips-in-his-parents-garage/
>> >
>> > more than 1000 transistors on it...
>> How can he connect it? Did he get a wire bond machine from ebay too?
>>
>> The wire bond machines have always been the part of the process that I
>> find most impressive, because they combine precision with fast moving
>> parts.
>
> You mean like pick and place machines? They may not have quite as much accuracy, but they are certainly in the same ball park. I see mentions of 0.001" or 25 um. How accurate are wire bonding machines? I see one mention of 2.5 um. So maybe 10x?
>
> Pick and Place has to maintain these numbers over distances ranging towards a meter. Wire bonding only needs to operate over a range of a cm or so. I know wire bonding is very fast, but for pick and place the long distance and the weight of the object being placed is much more in some cases. Handling a wide range of sizes is not easy either. I wonder just how long they maintain these specs as they wear?
>
> I find it interesting to watch a pick and place operate. One I saw had multiple heads so multiple pieces could be picked up with less movement while being placed.

A manually operated wire bonder doesn't look any different from a fancy
optical microscope. I was recently told quite a bit of this work is still
done by hand. The one I saw had no wire instaled, so I didn't get to play
with it for real.