Nippon Steel Group Announces the Licensing of the New-type Copper Bonding Wire(EX1) to Heraeus Materials Technology GmbH ＆ Co KG -The world’s top3 leading bonding wire manufacturers provide EX1- type copper bonding wire-

Nippon Steel Materials Co., Ltd. (NSMAT: President Kenji Yamada), an advanced materials company in the Nippon Steel Group, and Nippon Micrometal Corporation (NMC: President Toshio Inoue), a subsidiary of NSMAT and semiconductor packaging materials manufacturer, signed a patent licensing agreement with Heraeus Materials Technology GmbH & Co KG, a leading bonding wire manufacturer in Germany, for a new-type palladium-coated copper bonding wire “EX1” (product name) which is used for LSI packaging. This wire features greatly reduced precious metal usage and lower packaging costs.