Patent ID: 8283593

Claim:
A wire cleaning guide for guiding a wire in a feed direction and to clean the wire, comprising: a gas supply nozzle for supplying plasma generating gas; a plasma generating chamber with plasma generating gas supplied from the gas supply nozzle thereto for transforming the plasma generating gas into plasma by energizing a bonding wire that passes there through to clean the wire by means of the plasma gas, said plasma generating chamber being installed between a wire feeder and a bonding tool; and wire-feeder-side and bonding-tool-side guide holes for guiding the wire in the feed direction, the diameter of the wire-feeder-side guide hole is greater than that of the bonding-tool-side guide hole so that the outflow rate of gas after wire cleaning flowing between the wire-feeder-side guide hole and the wire is greater than that of gas after wire cleaning flowing between the bonding-tool-side guide hole and the wire.