Kulicke & Soffa Fluxless Thermocompression Bonding (APTURA)

Kulicke & Soffa Industries is a semiconductor assembly equipment company that describes itself as founded on innovation in 1951 and marked its 75th anniversary on its site. It serves automotive, compute, industrial, memory and communications markets, with product lines in advanced packaging, wire bonding, dispensing and wafer-level bonding.

Its fluxless thermocompression (FTC) technology combines plasma pre-cleaning with in-situ formic acid oxide reduction, so no post-bond flux cleaning is needed. It targets pitches below 10 microns across wafer-, substrate- and panel-level manufacturing, and the APTURA platform was highlighted in the 2026 SEMI Award release.

• Fluxless TCB: Thermocompression bonding without flux.
• Plasma pre-clean: Advanced plasma cleaning before bonding.
• Formic acid in-situ: Oxide reduction inside the bonding process.
• APTURA platform: Advanced packaging bonder highlighted in the award release.
• Fine pitch: Interconnects below 10 microns.
• Format flexibility: Wafer-level, substrate-level and panel-level manufacturing.

OSAT plants in Vietnam or Southeast Asia packaging AI accelerators and HBM can evaluate fluxless TCB for chip-to-substrate and chip-to-wafer assembly.

Silicon-photonics and co-packaged-optics assemblers can use it for fine-pitch interconnects.

Avoids post-bond flux cleaning, which becomes harder at finer pitches.

Enables ultra-fine-pitch interconnects below 10 microns with high yield, per the release.

Offers an alternative to hybrid bonding with less manufacturing complexity and cost.

Supports wafer-, substrate- and panel-level formats.

AI, HPC and co-packaged optics push interconnect pitches below what conventional flux-based bonding handles cleanly, while hybrid bonding adds cost and complexity. Thermocompression alternatives suit OSAT lines that must raise density without rebuilding fabs, a theme relevant to packaging investments in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.

Other 2026 news on the site: Raj Talluri appointed President and CEO (August), a CPO and advanced packaging announcement (September) and a memory solutions portfolio expansion (March, per search listing). Country US inferred from the Fort Washington, Pa. dateline.