OREANDA-NEWS. April 17, 2012. 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.