Automotive integrated circuits are requiring high temperature and high voltage application environments. High temperature and high voltage impose severe constraints on the design of IC interconnect and the materials used in the assembly and packaging processes. The use of fine gauge copper wire bonding has been growing very rapidly in consumer, portable, and industrial electronics. Freescale has made significant inroads in introducing and accelerating the adoption of fine gauge copper wire in the high reliability automotive space. The molding compounds were studied and reformulated to accommodate high voltage up to 65V. This presentation will discuss key learnings in copper wire bonding process and molding compound formulation development, and present an exciting update on Freescale strategy on gold to copper wire conversion.