surface that makes contact with the leads of the electronic component and transmits the heat necessary to effect a solder bond the diamond or diamond like surface has superior wear characteristics over any other material and it also is an electrical insulator to protect the electronic components from spurious voltages and currents generated by electrical currents that provide the heat for the hot bar application_number US 83863792 A description referring now to fig1 a bonding apparatus 10 is shown the bonding apparatus 10 is connected to larger machine such as a hot bar bonder by universal instruments or a similar device such a device has a carrier not shown to which the bonding apparatus 10 is attached the bonding apparatus 10 has two opposing thermodes 12 14 the two thermode example was selected for simplicity of description but the invention is not limited to two thermodes in fact an apparatus with four thermodes is contemplated for integrated circuits with external leads on four sides the location of the carrier and thermodes 12 14 is controlled for example by robotic control in a horizontal plane above an electronic module 18 until it is over the integrated circuit 20 and the conductors 22 24 that are attached to the module 18 once the thermodes 12 14 are located over the integrated circuit 20 and the integrated circuit 39 s respective conductors 24 on the module 18 the thermodes 12 14 are lowered until physical contact is made between the thermodes 12 14 and the external leads 22 of the integrated circuit 20 typically a coat of a bonding material 26 such as tin lead solder is applied beforehand to the external leads 22 of the integrated circuit 20.