SemiSerious

So much for copper being a low cost replacement for gold wires. Labor strife in Chile has reduced the supply of copper driving up raw material costs. There seems to be no end to high commodity prices faced by the microelectronics industry. If only there was a way to get Wal-Mart on our side to drive down the price of commodities. It’s so unfair that the retailing monster beats down consumer product prices while the poor microelectronics folk suffer ever-increasing costs of production.

Some of you may be old enough to remember something about aluminum replacing copper in house wiring due to a price spike in the sixties. The results were disastrous. Improper installation of aluminum wire caused fires that led to the loss of life and property. Any of us who then lived long enough to see copper replace aluminum as IC interconnect metal may have also noticed some early pains as copper and related new processing techniques were implemented about five or so years ago. Fortunately, only a few chips had to die. Will the high cost of copper cause a switch in IC interconnect? Will the industry revert back to aluminum? One can only speculate, as it appears often happens in the news media.