11. Tin tends rather easily to form hard, brittle intermetallic phases, which are often undesirable. 12. Additional time above liquidus may cause excessive intermetallic growth, which can lead to joint brittleness. 13. Metals which can form intermetallic compounds by an exothermic reaction are another class of candidate materials. 14. A heat treatment then causes interdiffusion of the metals and formation of the required intermetallic compound. 15. Such intermetallic growth, together with thermal cycling, can lead to failure of the bonding wires. 16. Bismuthides are not even wholly ionic; they are intermetallic compounds containing partially metallic and partially ionic bonds. 17. Boron can form intermetallic compounds and alloys with such metals of the composition M " n" 18. It is an intermetallic compound, meaning that it has properties intermediate between an ionic compound and an alloy. 19. These intermetallic alloys appear homogeneous in crystal structure, but tend to behave heterogeneously, becoming hard and somewhat brittle. 20. The fact that nitinol is an intermetallic is largely responsible for the difficulty in fabricating devices made from the alloy.
