Technical Insight
Pyramid probes place contacts accurately (Product Showcase)
Complex IC designs call for ever-smaller pitches and bond pads, which make it difficult to perform on-wafer testing. The traditional method uses needle probe cards and becomes impractical for more than about 500 bonding pads, but current designs require many thousands of contacts for as many as 500 to 1000 pads per die. Cascade Microtech s new thin-film Pyramid Probe Card for on-wafer testing solves this problem for production environments: the company s probe uses a membrane core that is processed photolithographically, resulting in contacts that are placed 10 to 15 times more accurately than hand-positioned needle probes. And because the contact area is smaller, the pyramid probe causes less pad damage, making it suitable for high-speed testing of wireless and telecommunications ICs, says Cascade Microtech. Another feature of the probe is a low contact resistance: 15 m compared to up to 3 for a needle probe. Contact Ellen Payne, Cascade Microtech, 2430 NW 206th Avenue, Beaverton, Oregon 97006, USA Tel. +1 503 601 1181 Fax +1 503 601 1002 E-mail ellen_payne@cmicro.com
