Abstract: A wire comprising a wire core with a surface, the wire core having a coating layer superimposed on its surface, wherein the wire core itself is a silver-based wire core, wherein the coating layer is a double-layer comprised of a 1 to 100 nm thick inner layer of nickel or palladium and an adjacent 1 to 250 nm thick outer layer of gold, characterized in that the wire exhibits a total carbon content of ?40 wt.-ppm.

Abstract: The invention relates to a method for structuring metal-ceramic substrates and to a structured metal-ceramic substrate which can be used in particular in power electronics. In the method, a first metal-ceramic substrate and a second metal-ceramic substrate are etched, wherein, while being contacted with an etching solution that is capable of removing active metal from the bonding layer of the metal-ceramic substrates, the first metal-ceramic substrate and the second metal-ceramic substrate are positioned such that an orthogonal projection of the first metal-ceramic substrate onto a projection plane parallel to the metal layer of the first metal-ceramic substrate shades no more than 60% of the metal layer of the second metal-ceramic substrate.

Abstract: A bonding wire according to the invention contains a core having a surface and a coating layer which is at least partially superimposed over the surface of the core. The core contains a core main component selected from copper and silver and the coating layer contains a coating component selected from palladium, platinum, gold, rhodium, ruthenium, osmium and iridium. The coating layer is applied on the surface of the core by depositing a film of a liquid containing a coating component precursor onto a wire core precursor and heating the deposited film to decompose the coating component precursor into a metallic phase.

Abstract: The invention is related to a bonding wire which contains a core having a surface and a coating layer which is at least partially superimposed over the surface of the core. The core contains a core main component selected from copper and silver. The coating layer contains a coating component selected from palladium, platinum, gold, rhodium, ruthenium, osmium and iridium in an amount of at least 10% and further contains the core main component in an amount of at least 10%.