Bonding Pixels

Pixel picture of a Christmas tree with presents, made of gold stud bumps, seen under the microscope

Wire bonding art. Every pixel is a gold stud bump.

Bonding Pixels are pictures made from gold stud bumps. A wire bonder places them one by one on a programmed grid, and every bump is one pixel.

See the pictures Play the games

Three games about wire bonding

Short rounds, pixel look, no download. They run in your browser on phone, tablet and desktop, and your progress stays on your device.

  • BondWords, first level: a four by four grid of gold letter pads with the words PAD, BALL and LOOP to find

    BondWordsBondWords

    Find three wire bonding terms hidden in a letter grid, 30 seconds per round, 30 levels.

    Play BondWords
  • BondFlow, first level: a four by four board with three pairs of numbered pads in teal, coral and blue

    BondFlowBondFlow

    Connect matching pads with wires without crossing, and fill the whole board to solve a level.

    Play BondFlow
  • BondLoopz, first level: an empty four by four board with a wire piece ready to place and a sixty second timer

    BondLoopzBondLoopz

    Rotate and place wire pieces so they close loops before the clock runs out.

    Play BondLoopz

Each game saves your progress in your browser only. Nothing is sent anywhere.

From pixel image to gold bumps

The tool is a wire bonder, the machine that connects chips to their packages with hair-thin wire. We use it to draw.

  1. Draw the picture.

    The image is designed as a pixel grid in a small browser tool. One pixel on screen will become one bump.

  2. Write the program.

    The tool turns the grid into position data for the bonder: one coordinate per pixel.

  3. Bond the pixels.

    The bonder melts the tip of a gold wire into a tiny ball, presses it onto the surface with ultrasound, and tears the wire off right above the ball. What stays is a stud bump: one gold pixel. Then it moves to the next coordinate.

  4. Look closely.

    Under the microscope every bump shows its own shape, so no two pixels are exactly alike.

This is not chip art. Chip art is drawn into the chip's layers during manufacturing. Bonding Pixels sit on top, in three dimensions, and are made afterwards, one gold bump at a time.

Mr. Bond, the Bond-IQ mascot, a robot with a chip for a body

About this project

Bonding Pixels is an art side project of Bond-IQ GmbH, a wire bonding consultancy in Berlin. Stefan Schmitz, who runs Bond-IQ, started it to see what the machines he works with every day can do beyond wiring chips. In his words: what draws him to this is design and creativity.

Nothing here is for sale, and this page is not a company site. If you want to know what Bond-IQ does, the link below takes you there.

Questions

What is a stud bump?

A stud bump is a ball bond without the wire. The bonder forms a ball at the end of a gold wire, bonds it to the surface and tears the wire off just above it. In wire bonding, stud bumps are used as contacts. Here they are pixels.

How is a picture made?

Draw a pixel grid, turn it into coordinates, let the bonder place one gold bump per pixel. The section above shows the four steps.

Can I play the games on my phone?

Yes. All three games run in the browser from 320 pixels wide, with touch, mouse or keyboard, and need no download.

Is this a Bond-IQ product?

No. It is a side project of the people behind Bond-IQ. Bond-IQ itself does consulting, training and failure analysis for wire bonding.

Can I order a picture?

Nothing is impossible - lets talk.