Abstract: The misapplication or misplacement of solder bumps on chips and/or circuit boards presents financially significant waste and cost efficiency problems in the manufacture of electronic components. The present invention describes an article and a process for using the article to more quickly remove such spurious solder during manufacture of components. The present invention may comprise an article for assisting in the removal of solder from a surface comprising: a) a surface layer of textured material which can be wet by molten solder, b) a first thermally conductive layer having a surface which is in thermal contact with said surface layer, and c) preferably a flux which is present on at least one of said surface layer and said thermally conductive layer having a surface in thermal contact with said surface layer. The article may be preferably provided where the first thermally conductive layer comprises a sheet of flexible, thermally conductive metal, especially aluminum.

Abstract: The object is to provide a bump bonder wherein the drop of the tact efficiency of bump formation can be reduced to a low level by discard-bonding of unsatisfactory balls (3) so that satisfactory bumps can be formed. It features arranging a discard bonding chip (19) on bonding stage (17), which holds in their prescribed positions the semiconductor chips (13a), (13b) that are to be subjected to bump formation and performing discard bonding to discard bonding chip (19). Due to this construction, discard bonding can be effected without needing to move the capillary far from the bonding stage (17), which is the working position.

Abstract: An apparatus for continuously feeding the wire to a wire cutting apparatus. The present invention provides a pair of mandrels provided in an in-line configuration and provided on a turntable. An active coil is loaded onto one of the mandrels while a idle coil is loaded onto the other mandrel. As the wire is being pulled to the wire cutting apparatus from the active coil the tail end of the active coil is bent into abutting relationship with the lead end of the idle coil and welded together. As a result, when the active coil is exhausted, the pulling force of the cutting machine enables the carousel to rotate so that the idle coil assumes the active position and the new coil can be loaded onto the now idle coil for a continuous feed of wire to the wire cutting apparatus.