• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.19 no.9
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• pp.825-831
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• 2006

As an increase of chip complexity and level of chip integration, chip input/output (I/O) pad pitches are also drastically reduced. With arrival of high complexity SoC (System on Chip) and SiP (System in Package) products, conventional horizontal type probe card showed its limitation on probing density for wafer level test. To enhance probing density, we proposed new vertical type probe card that has the $70{\mu}m$ probe needle with tungsten wire in $80{\mu}m$ micro-drilled hole in ceramic board. To minimize alignment error, micro-drilling conditions are optimized and epoxy-hardening conditions are also optimized to minimize planarity changes. To apply wafer level test for target devices (T5365 256M SDRAM), designed probe card was characterized by probe needle tension for test, contact resistance measurement, leakage current measurement and the planarity test. Compare to conventional probe card with minimum pitch of $50{\sim}125{\mu}m\;and\;2\;{\Omega}$ of average contact resistance, designed probe card showed only $22{\mu}$ of minimum pitch and $1.5{\Omega}$ of average contact resistance. And also, with the nature of vertical probing style, it showed comparably small contact scratch and it can be applied to bumping type chip test.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.661-669
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• 1999

A probe card is one of the most important pan of test systems as testing IC(integrated circuit) chips. This work was related to bump-type silicon vertical probe card which enabled simultaneous tests for multiple semiconductor chips. The probe consists of silicon cantilever with bump tip. In order to obtain optimum size of the cantilever, the dimensions were determined by FEM(finite element method) analysis. The probe was fabricated by RIE(reactive ion etching), isotropic etching, and bulk-micromachining using SDB(silicon direct bonding) wafer. The optimum height of the bump of the probe detemimed by FEM simulation was 30um. The optimum thickness, width, and length of the cantilever were 20 $\mum$, 100 $\mum$,and 400 $\mum$,respectively. Contact resistance of the fabricated probe card measured at contact resistance testing was less than $2\Omega$. It was also confirmed that its life time was more than 20,000 contacts because there was no change of contact resistance after 20,000 contacts.

• Journal of Applied Reliability
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.23-29
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• 2007

Probe card is a test component which is to classify the known good die with electrical contact before the packaging in the ATE (automatic testing equipment). Conventional probe tip was mostly needle type, it has been difficult to meet with conventional type, because of decreasing chip size, pad to pad pitch and pads size increasingly. For that reason, probe cards using MEMS (micro electro mechanical system) technology have been developed for various semiconductor chips. In this paper, Area Array type MEMS Probe tip was designed,, fabricated, and characterized its mechanical and electrical properties. The authors found that good electrical characteristics under $1{\Omega}$ were acquired with gold (Au) and aluminium (Al) pad contact test over 0.5gf and 4gf respectively. And, contact resistance variation under $0.1{\Omega}$ were achieved with 100,000 times of repetition test. And, insertion loss (IS) for high frequency operation was ascertained over 300MHz at -3dB loss.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.667-670
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• 2005

본 논문은 100um와 80um의 텅스텐 와이어를 이용하여 세라믹(Ceramic)기판에 홀(Hole)을 뚫어 텅스텐 와이어를 수직으로 세우는 방식으로 수직형의 마이크로 스프링을 제작하였다. 마이크로 스프링의 설계를 위해 제한된 실험 결과와 신경회로망을 이용하여 텅스텐 와이어의 두께와 높이, 쉬프트(Shift)의 양을 변화시키면서 장력(Tension force)을 모델링하였고 제작을 통해 검증하였다. 이는 기존의 수평형 프로브카드의 한계를 대체할 수 있는 수직형 프로브카드의 핵심 모듈로서 멀티다이(Multi Die) 뿐만 아니라 범핑(Bumping)타입의 칩 테스트도 가능하다.