STATS ChipPAC, the semiconductor test and advanced packaging service provider, today announced it has shipped over 100 million semiconductor packages with copper wire bond interconnect and expects copper wire bond production volume to grow another 75% by the end of 2010 due to a rapidly growing customer base.

While copper has been used in the semiconductor industry as an interconnect material for many years, there has been a recent surge in demand due to the fact that copper represents one of the most significant savings in material costs available today.

The high price of gold has driven a rapid shift to copper as an attractive alternative to achieve cost savings in semiconductor packages.