• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.374-378
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• 2013

In this paper, a new structure of probe unit is designed and fabricated with PDMS, which is well-known elastic material, as a buffer layer for increasing overdrive force and mechanical strength. In general, PDMS is widely used as actuation material due to its elasticity and compatibility of fabrication process. In this work, PDMS layer is chosen for mechanical elasticity of the proposed probe unit. We achieved the high overdrive force by placing PDMS buffer layer under the silicon based cantilever due to its elasticity. Moreover, the relation between prove length and overdrive force was measured by experiment in this work. Therefore, the various specifications of the micro prove unit can be designed by using the results of this work.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.21 no.7
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• pp.831-841
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• 2010

The conventional vertical probe has the thin and long signal path that makes transfer characteristic of probe worse because of the S-shaped structure. So we propose the new vertical probe structure that has branch springs in the S-shaped probe. It makes closed loop when the probe mechanically connects to the electrode on a wafer. We fabricated the proposed vertical probe and measured the transfer characteristic and mechanical properties. Compared to the conventional S-shaped vertical probe, the proposed probe has the overdrive that is 1.2 times larger and the contact force that is 2.5 times larger. And we got the improved transfer characteristic by 1.4 dB in $0{\sim}10$ GHz. Also we developed the simulation model of the probe card by using full-wave simulator and the simulation result is correlated with measurement one. As a result of this simulation model, the cantilever probe and PCB have the worst transfer characteristic in the probe card.