Modeling and analysis of coplanar bonding wires for high-speed applications

In this contribution, two-conductor and coplanar bond wire configurations are modeled, analyzed and compared. The impact of the pitch of the bond wires and the distance of separation between the signal wire and a nearby reference plane, on RF performance are quantified for GSM 900/1800, 2.4 GHz/5GHz WLAN and high-speed applications above 10 GHz. Considering a bond wire diameter of 50 m, length of 1mm and pitch of 100 m, it is found that almost 3 times more power is lost through the two-conductor model than coplanar configuration at 10 GHz. This makes the coplanar configuration more suited for high-speed applications.