Agilent EEsof EDA

Characterization and Modeling of Bond Wires for

High-Frequency Applications

This document is owned by Agilent Technologies, but is no longer kept current and may contain obsolete or
inaccurate references. We regret any inconvenience this may cause. For the latest information on Agilent’s
line of EEsof electronic design automation (EDA) products and services, please go to:

www.agilent.com/find/eesof
40 Bond wire modeling

Characterization and modeling of bond wires for

high-frequency applications
By: Dean Nicholson and HeeSoo Lee

B
ond wires are used as the standard Figure 1: A single 26 µm
method of connecting microwave ICs diameter wedgebond with
and interconnect circuitry. The high bond center 25 µm high
impedance of the bond wires causes inductive above circuit: circuit edge
discontinuities, which result in impedance separation is 0.1 mm,
mismatches and unwanted reflections. Various with 127 µm (5 mil) thick
techniques have been used to provide lower alumina and Er of 9.9.
mismatch interconnects between circuits, such
as minimizing the gap between the circuits to
shorten the bond wires, using wider ribbon
bonds for lower impedance to connect the
circuits, and even going to flip chip ICs to
achieve lower inductance interconnects. This
article uses lumped-element models and 3D
modeling (using EDA software from Agilent
Technologies) to accurately model the frequency
and time domain performance of bond wire
interconnects. Modeled results for a bond wire
interconnect between two thin-film circuits are Figure 2: Performance of
compared against measured results. a single 26 µm diameter
Bond wires are the traditional way of wedgebond bond center
connecting two circuits in the microwave 25 µm high above circuit:
industry due to their low cost, flexibility to adapt circuit edge separation is
to different layouts, and relatively good return 0.1 mm, with 127 µm (5
loss performance. There have been numerous mil) thick alumina and Er
papers presenting modeling and experimental of 9.9.
results for bond wires to interconnect ICs and
circuits together to frequencies up to 100 GHz extremely close together to minimize the length worse than 20 dB return loss at frequencies
and beyond [1-5], and for high-speed time- of the high-impedance section. However, both above 20 GHz for producible circuit to circuit
domain applications [6]. This article looks at of the techniques result in significant cost separations and trace setbacks, as shown in the
a subset of that work, examining an efficient increase or producibility problems. Even the performance plot in figure 2.
technique to extract lumped element models simplest and most producible way of improving Instead of using a transmission line
for bond wires used to interconnect 50-ohm the performance of a bond wire interconnect, model to represent the different impedance
microstrip lines on 127 µm-thick alumina by going to a wedge bond with the flattest sections, it is more useful to use the semi-
circuits by using a combination of lumped- feasible profile to minimize bond wire length lumped element modeling technique
element and 3D modeling tools, and then using and height as shown in figure 1 still gives described in [7], where the lumped element
these lumped-element models to optimize the
frequency-domain performance of these bond
wire transitions.
A bond wire connecting two microstrips
represents a short, high-impedance
transmission line embedded in a 50-ohm
system. Ball bonds with their relatively high Figure 3: A compensated
arch have enough of this high-impedance through-line transition
length to give significant degradation in and two wedgebonds.
return loss even at frequencies below 20 GHz. Bond center is 25 µm high
There are various ways to minimize this (maximum) and circuit
reflective discontinuity either by going to wider edge separation is 0.1 mm,
interconnects such as ribbon bonds for a lower with 127 µm (5 mil) thick
impedance, or by placing the two circuits alumina and Er of 9.9.

Microwave Engineering Europe ● August/September 2006 ● www.mwee.com

42 Bond wire modeling
values are derived from the transmission line
model for the bond wires. Upon inspection,
it can be seen that the simplest way to reduce
the reflections caused by a high impedance
discontinuity is to incorporate it into an LPF
structure. The most compact LPF structure
incorporating these bondwires is a shunt-
series-shunt C-L-C structure whose physical
implementation is shown in figure 3, where
the shunt C sections are implemented as
widened regions at the ends of the microstrip
where the bond wires attach.
The different height profiles modeled
for the bond wires are shown in Figure 4.
The schematic representation of this semi-
lumped element model is shown in Figure
5, where good agreement is shown between
the semi-lumped model in Advanced Design
System (ADS) RF and Microwave design and
simulation software and the 3D model from
Electromagnetic Design System (EMDS),
the 3D simulation software from Agilent
Technologies, Inc.
After this model is obtained, it can easily
be shown that for a given length of high-
impedance bondwires, a shunt-series-shunt
C-L-C filter implementation is not only
more compact than creating a series-shunt-
series L-C-L filter by adding an extra high
impedance section of micro-strip, the C-L-
C LPF gives better S11 and S21 to higher
frequency for a given length of bond wires. If
Microwave Engineering Europe ● August/September 2006
Figure 4: Side views
of various bond
heights. Bond height
measured from top of
substrate to center of
bondwire.
Figure 5: EMDS
simulation versus
ADS simulation,
25 µm bond wire
height.
the capacitance of the bond wires is also taken
into account explicitly with a C-L-C model
used to approximate the bond wires, this will
give more accurate results from the lumped-
element model if the capacitive compensation
traces at the end of the microstrip are left
the same, but the length of the bond wires is
varied, which is the scenario that would be
most likely seen in production.
If the bond wires are modeled as simply an
inductive element, there would be no reason
to expect the value of the compensation
capacitive elements at the end of the
microstrip line to change as the length of the
bond wires is varied, leading to a less accurate
lumped element model over varying bond
lengths. The value of going to the effort of
obtaining an accurate lumped element value is
that there is an extensive body of closed-form
Figure 6: EMDS
simulations of
compensated thru line
transitions for various max
height wedgebonds versus
best uncompensated (25
µm height) case, trace
50 µm back from circuit
edge. Circuit edge to edge
separation is 0.1 mm, with
127 µm thick alumina and
Er of 9.9.
● www.mwee.com
solutions for lumped-element filter design
that has been developed over many years
that does not exist for transmission line or
3D structures, so once the lumped-element
values are correctly obtained, it becomes
more straight forward to design the bond-wire
interconnects and capacitive compensation
structures with the desired frequency- and
time-domain characteristics. For example,
when the lumped-element modeling is used, it
is fast and simple to make tradeoffs suitable
for a particular application between going
to a 5-element LPF to extend the best high
frequency return loss, versus staying with a
3-element LPF for improved compactness.
There are additional benefits to extracting
the lumped-element model, as dispersion
effects in the time domain can now be quickly
calculated and traded off with return loss to
give optimized performance.
The pattern of bond wires and circuit
compensation elements is shown in figures 3
and 4, where the high impedance of the bond
wires is first reduced by using two bond wires
in parallel, and the resulting high impedance
line is then capacitively compensated at
both of its ends by widened sections of the
microstrip ends to form a LPF with as high a
cutoff frequency as possible, while still keeping
good in-band return loss, as shown in figure
6. Though these compensated transitions
with widened microstrip sections on the end
are compared to uncompensated transitions
that have no widened sections, it can be more
difficult for the narrow 50-ohm microstrips on
thinner ceramic substrates to have two bond
wires interconnecting adjacent circuits. Note
that for the capacitive compensation pattern
shown in figure 3, even if the bond wires have
significant arch to them, their high frequency
return loss performance is still quite good up
to 30 GHz. Reasonable dimensions were used
that fit into standard contract manufacturer
fabrication and assembly tolerances with the
circuits separated by a 0.1 mm gap between
them, and the traces being relieved 50 µm
back from the circuit edges. Wedge bonding
was assumed as mentioned previously, as this
 44 Bond wire modeling

allows for very flat bonds if desired, and is now

commonly used by contract manufacturers in
the high-frequency industry.
To make an accurate measurement of
the return loss of an optimized two-bond-
wire interconnect structure without using a
microwave probe station and its associated
complex calibration, the simple arrangement
shown in figure 7 was used, where this SMT
package previously described [8] is mounted
on a small evaluation PCB with 2.4 mm end
launch connectors suitable for use to 50 GHz.
This arrangement allows for the use of a less
than one minute electronic coaxial calibration
using the electronic calibration module of the
network analyzer. The arrangement of figure
7 provides for a long length of reflection-
free 50-ohm transmission line leading up
to and away from the optimized two bond
wire interconnect structure allowing the
time gating function of the network analyzer
to be used to accurately isolate only the
reflections from the optimized two-bond-
wire interconnect structure. The measured
reflection will be attenuated compared to its
actual value by twice the insertion loss of the
connector and the transmission lines leading
up to the bond wire transition, due to the
measured reflected wave having traveled up to
the bond wire transition, and then back from
there to the connector reference plane.
The insertion loss of the connectors and
transmission lines leading up to the transition
can be accurately accounted for by using
a separate calibration PCB with a short
circuit at the same position as the bond wire
discontinuity that is being measured, and then
correcting the measured reflection by this
value. This procedure was followed to give
the accurately calibrated return loss results
shown in figure 8 for the compensated two-
bond-wire transition shown in figure 7, which
has its bond wire center height 25 µm above
the substrate surface. The measured results
match the modeled results well up to 35 GHz,
at which point there begins to be significant
deviation between them.
Figure 7: Measurement configuration for
optimally compensated two-bond-wire
transition.
The main reason we don’t see better
agreement between measured and modeled
results is that the model parameters are based
on the dimensions for the circuit that are in
the design, rather than those that were actually
measured from the physical implementation
of the design. Thus, deviations between
the designed and the actually implemented
dimensions for things such as substrate
thickness, conductor trace width for the
50-ohm and compensating sections of the
transmission line, distance between the end
of the compensating sections and the end of
the substrate, and length of the gap between
the two substrates will all cause discrepancies
between measured and modeled values.
These differences in observed results due
to relatively small differences in designed
versus implemented dimensions become
more pronounced for the two cases where we
observe them, specifically for high frequencies,
where our measured and modeled results
diverge above 35 GHz, and for very small
reflections, where our measured  and modeled
results are offset by approximately 10 dB below
35 GHz. However, it is important to note that a
10 dB offset between a -30 dB and -40 dB  S11
measurement represents only the very small

Figure 8: Measured
versus modeled
performance of
two-bond-wire
interconnect
with optimized
compensation pads.

Microwave Engineering Europe ● August/September 2006 ● www.mwee.com

46 Bond wire modeling
difference between 0.1 percent of the power
being reflected for the 30 dB case and 0.01
percent of the power being reflected for the
-40 dB case. Thus a 10 dB difference between
very low values of reflection is not nearly as
significant as a 10 dB difference between a -10
dB and -20 dB S11 measurement for example,
and the fact that the shape of the S11 plots
matches well for measured and modeled results
below 35 GHz, and they both represent a very
low value of reflection leads to our description
of them as being in good agreement.
In conclusion, a technique is shown
to optimally compensate the bond-wire
interconnect between two microstrip circuits
to give excellent return loss and insertion
loss performance up to 50 GHz using
circuit spacings and layouts suitable for a
manufacturing environment. Good agreement
was obtained between measured and modeled
results. Lumped-element representations of
the 3D structures were obtained that gave
good agreement with the 3D simulated
results, and these lumped-element models
can be used to accurately include the effects
of the bondwire transitions in more complex
circuit simulations inlvolving multiple
components and active devices.
Microwave Engineering Europe ● August/September 2006
References
U. Goebel, “DC to 100 GHz Chip-to-
Chip Interconnects with Reduced Tolerance
Sensitivity by Adaptive Wirebonding,”
pp182-185, IEEE 3rd Topical Meeting
on Electrical Performance of Electronic
Packaging, November 1994.
Hai-Young Lee, “Wideband
Characterization of a Typical Bonding
Wire for Microwave and Millimeter-Wave
Integrated Circuits,” IEEE Trans. On MTT,
Vol. 43, No 1, pp 63-68, January 1995.
T. Krems, W. Haydl, H. Massler, J.
Rudiger, ”Millimeter-Wave Performance of
Chip Interconnections Using Wire Bonding
and Flip Chip,” IEEE MTT-S Digest, pp 247-
250, 1996.
Liam Devlin, “How to Design Low-Cost
MM-Wave Equipment,” Presented at 2nd
Annual Wireless Broadband Forum, Nov. 25-
26, 2003, Cambridge, England.
W. Simon et al, “Interconnects
and Transitions in Multilayer LTCC
Multichip Modules for 24 GHz ISM-Band
Applications,” IEEE MTT-S Digest, pp 1047-
1050, Boston, June 2000.
G. Matthei, L. Young and EMT Jones,
”Microwave Filters and Impedance Matching
● www.mwee.com
Networks, and Coupling Structures,” Artech
House, 1980 reprint of 1964 ed., pp 85-104.
Intel Packaging Databook, Chapter 4,
2000.
D. Nicholson, “Low Return Loss DC to
60 GHz SMT Package With Performance
Verification by Precision 50 Ohm Load,”35th
European Microwave Conference Digest, pp
157-160, October 4-6, 2005.
About the authors
Dean Nicholson is a hardware R&D
engineer at the Santa Rosa site of Agilent’s
Test and Measurement Operation, where
he is responsible for the development of
advanced components for use in next-
generation frequency- and time-domain test
instrumentation.
Hee-Soo Lee is a RF SiP/Module design
flow specialist working at Agilent EEsof
Division, where he is responsible for
developing and promoting ADS/RFDE
software solutions for RF SiP/Module market.
Company Information
Agilent Technologies
www.agilent.com
For more information about Agilent Email Updates www.agilent.com
Agilent EEsof EDA, visit:
www.agilent.com/find/emailupdates For more information on Agilent Technologies’
products, applications or services, please
Get the latest information on the
www.agilent.com/find/eesof products and applications you select.
contact your local Agilent office. The
complete list is available at:
www.agilent.com/find/contactus
Agilent Direct
Americas
www.agilent.com/find/agilentdirect Canada (877) 894-4414
Quickly choose and use your test Latin America 305 269 7500
equipment solutions with confidence. United States (800) 829-4444

Asia Pacific
Australia 1 800 629 485
China 800 810 0189
Hong Kong 800 938 693
India 1 800 112 929
Japan 0120 (421) 345
Korea 080 769 0800
Malaysia 1 800 888 848
Singapore 1 800 375 8100
Taiwan 0800 047 866
Thailand 1 800 226 008

Europe & Middle East

Austria 0820 87 44 11
Belgium 32 (0) 2 404 93 40
Denmark 45 70 13 15 15
Finland 358 (0) 10 855 2100
France 0825 010 700*
*0.125 €/minute
Germany 01805 24 6333**
**0.14 €/minute
Ireland 1890 924 204
Israel 972-3-9288-504/544
Italy 39 02 92 60 8484
Netherlands 31 (0) 20 547 2111
Spain 34 (91) 631 3300
Sweden 0200-88 22 55
Switzerland 0800 80 53 53
United Kingdom 44 (0) 118 9276201
Other European Countries:
www.agilent.com/find/contactus
Revised: March 27, 2008

Product specifications and descriptions

in this document subject to change
without notice.

© Agilent Technologies, Inc. 2008

Printed in USA, September 01, 2006
5989-9011EN