Techniques of protecting cored or coreless semiconductor packages having materials formed from dissimilar metals from galvanic corrosion are described. An exemplary semiconductor package comprises one or more build-up layers; first and second semiconductor components (e.g., die, EMIB, etc.) on or embedded in the one or more build-up layers. The first semiconductor component may be electrically coupled to the second semiconductor component via a contact pad and an interconnect structure that are formed in the one or more build-up layers. The contact pad can comprise a contact region, a non-contact region, and a gap region that separates the contact region from the non-contact region. Coupling of the contact pad and an interconnect structure is performed by coupling only the contact region with the interconnect structure. Also, a surface area of the contact region can be designed to substantially equal to a surface area of the interconnect structure.