It was studied in the present work how the thermal cycling performance of LOC (lead on chip) packages depends on the package construct or leadframe materials. First, package body thickness and Au wire diameter were manipulated for the selection of proper package design. Secondly, two different types of leadframe materials (i.e. copper and 52%Fe-48%Ni alloy) were tested to determine the better material for improved reliability margin of plastically encapsulated microelectronic packages. This work shows that manipulating package body thickness was more effective than an increase of Au wire from 23$mu extrm{m}$ to 33$mu extrm{m}$ for the prevention of wire debonding failure. Further, this work indicates that the LOC packages including the copper leadframes can be more susceptible to thermal cycling reliability degradation due to chip cracking than those including the alloy leadframes.