SPT/SMALL PRECISION TOOLS

At a glance

Company profile

SPT/SMALL PRECISION TOOLS has worked as a pioneer in semiconductor bonding tools for more than four decades, building its position around precision tooling for semiconductor assembly. Its capabilities draw on roots in the watch industry and have been applied to modern microelectronics and precision manufacturing, while the company describes itself as a full-range supplier of semiconductor tools and a technology leader in ceramic injection molding focused on micro-miniature products. SPT/SMALL PRECISION TOOLS serves more than one thousand long-standing customers in more than fifty countries, supported by qualified employees, dedicated management, and a customer-oriented approach to product and service quality. Quality assurance across SPT facilities is supported by quality-management systems certified to ISO13485:2016 and/or ISO9001:2015, alongside manufacturing equipment and techniques that the company applies to demanding precision products and services. The company states that environmental protection and production safety are part of its management philosophy and that its global subsidiaries produce according to international ESG guidelines and applicable legal requirements. Its manufacturing facilities and sales network are distributed across the globe so that engineering, sales, service, and application support can be positioned close to customers. SPT/SMALL PRECISION TOOLS also describes continuous improvement of its processes and adoption of advanced technologies as part of its approach to meeting customer specifications and maintaining demanding product and service standards. The business traces its history to 1890, when the company was founded in Lyss, Switzerland under the name P. Roth AG and produced watch stones and industrial rubies for the watch industry. In 1964 it manufactured its first metal capillaries for wiring transistors and printed circuits, and in 1974 Small Precision Tools Inc. California joined the Roth Group to manufacture die-bond and wire-bond tools for the semiconductor industry. In 1976 the group began producing ceramic capillaries and precision parts using Ceramic Injection Molding, followed in 1979 by the founding of SPT Asia Pte Ltd. in Singapore for semiconductor-tool manufacturing and sales in the Asian market. Further expansion included Moldinject Ltd. and Perfectamould AG activities in Switzerland in 1982, a Philippine semiconductor-tool manufacturing and sales operation founded in 1991, and a Wuxi, P.R. China company founded in 1995 for manufacturing and selling semiconductor tools in China. In 1998 the Swiss companies were merged into SPT Roth AG to optimize production processes and increase synergies, and SPT became the uniform name of the group; SPT Japan K.K. then opened in 2001 to be closer to Japanese customers. The group expanded CIM production at its Lyss headquarters in 2003, acquired Microminiature Technology Inc. in 2007 and integrated the abrasion-resistant Microloy material into its product range, and moved its Philippine production site to a new Clark facility in 2013. SPT marked its 125th anniversary in 2015, expanded premises in Clark and at the Lyss headquarters in 2019, took over Gaiser company assets from Coorstek in 2020, and changed leadership in 2021 as responsibility moved to external management.

Exhibits

SPT/SMALL PRECISION TOOLS supplies semiconductor wire-bonding capillaries for standard and fine-pitch copper, gold, and silver-alloy wire bonding; bonding wedges for ultrasonic aluminium or gold wire bonding; ribbon-wire bonding wedges; die-attach collets for eutectic die bonding; epoxy dispensing tools; and pick-up tools for epoxy die bonding. It also manufactures custom micro-miniature tools, parts, and accessories in steel, carbide, and ceramics using CNC processes and Ceramic Injection Molding. Its semiconductor-tool range spans Die Attach & Vacuum Pickup Tools, Flip Chip Tools, and Semiconductor Wire Bonding Capillaries & Wedges, covering assembly requirements from die attach through wire bonding. For customer-specific packaging requirements and process challenges, SPT/SMALL PRECISION TOOLS offers both standard tooling designs and custom designs, with sales and service engineers and application specialists supporting work from the design phase through the start of mass production. Its bonding capillaries are produced with the company's Ceramic Injection Molding technology together with in-house material formulation and sintering processes, and are offered for standard and ultra-fine-pitch thermosonic bonding with gold, copper, and silver-alloy wire. Manufacturing capabilities include conventional and CNC machining, milling, turning, surface grinding, honing, Electro-Discharge Machining, jig grinding, and Ceramic Injection Molding of small complex parts using in-house formulation and sintering for high-alumina ceramic and carbide materials. The company makes standard and custom designs to customer requirements and maintains high-precision dimensional and quality standards for its tools. Support services include consulting, design, analysis, training seminars, and benchmarking partnerships, while material and process technology laboratories in Switzerland and Singapore provide material analysis, process evaluation and characterization, and tool-design optimization. The capillary portfolio supports standard packages such as SOIC and TSOP as well as low-k, stacked-die, multi-tier, copper-wire, and ultra-fine-pitch bonding applications. Named capillary options include SU with a special coupling finish for copper wire bonding, AZR with long-life material for copper wire bonding, CR with robust material for copper wire bonding, SF for advanced stitch-bond challenges, and PI wire-loop capillaries for ultra-fine-pitch bonding. The range also includes SI for enhanced stitch bondability with gold and silver-alloy wire, SQ for QFN packages, Doppler for sensitive metallization, and Infinity with an anti-load-up approach for gold and silver wire bonding. SU capillaries combine a durable material with SPT's proprietary enhanced surface finishing and gripping features for copper wire sizes from 15µm to 100µm, with the aim of delivering reliable stitch bonds across fine- and large-wire applications. For copper wire bonding, the company describes electrical and thermal conductivity, reduced intermetallic growth, and higher break load in wire-pull testing as advantages over gold, while also identifying oxidation at low temperature, short-tail defects, and fish-tail defects as process challenges. SPT/SMALL PRECISION TOOLS has collaborated with customers on capillary development for copper wire bonding and developed SU from its SI Stitch Integrator series as a capillary tailored specifically for copper wire bonding. In stitch-bond evaluation, bond integrity is measured by pulling the bonded wire close to the stitch and recording pull strength in gram-force, with higher pull strength and a remaining-stitch failure mode used as indicators of a good bond at the interface. The company reports that SU produced significantly better stitch pull-test readings than other capillary finishing types under the same bonding parameters, package and device conditions, and copper wire size. It also reports that SU improves stitch-bondability while reducing short-tail defects and non-sticking on lead, with the reduction associated with greater production output through lower mean time before assist, and describes SU as the result of extensive research and customer testing. For die handling, SPT/SMALL PRECISION TOOLS provides tools adapted to die-bonder equipment used in manual, semi-automatic, and fully automatic assembly processes, with selection based on the technical requirements of the application. Its die-bonding range covers Pick & Place tools and fluid-transfer tooling for dispensing and stamping, including single- or multi-needle dispensing tools, metallic stamping tools for different die sizes and other devices to be glued, and a dispensing capillary for solder-ball placement or jetting. Accessories include metallic or plastic-tip push-up needles, a needle holder and needle cap, a heater block, and custom clamping systems, while pick-up tools are offered in varied shapes and materials selected according to hardness and other mechanical properties for standard or more specialized applications.

Capabilities and products

• wire-bonding capillaries for copper, gold and silver-alloy wire
• ultrasonic wedge-bonding tools for aluminum and gold wire
• ribbon wire bonding wedges
• eutectic die-attach collets
• epoxy dispensing tools
• pickup tools for epoxy die bonding
• flip-chip tools
• custom microminiature tools and parts
• ceramic-injection-molded precision parts

Related product topics

← Topic index · ← Exhibitor list · ← Exhibitor Finder · Organizers can see who found these exhibitors →