Highly reliable probe card for wafer testing

Author

Maekawa, S. ; Takemoto, M. ; Kashiba, Y. ; Deguchi, Y. ; Miki, K. ; Nagata, T.

Author_Institution

Manuf. Eng. Center, Mitsubishi Electr. Corp., Hyogo, Japan

fYear

2000

fDate

2000

Firstpage

1152

Lastpage

1156

Abstract

A probe card with tungsten probes (needles) is conventionally used for wafer testing. However, the electrical contact between a probe and an aluminum bonding pad becomes unstable, due to the adhesive pick-up of aluminum on the probe tip. In order to maintain a low and stable contact resistance, the probe tip has to be cleaned frequently. A contact mechanism and an adhesion phenomenon are examined to improve the unstable contact. The relations between a tip shape and a plastic deformation of aluminum, and a surface roughness of tip and a adhesion of aluminum are discussed. It was found that the tungsten probe tip with a surface roughness of 0.1 μm and a radius of 15 μm can maintain stable testing over contact of 300,000 times

Keywords

adhesion; contact resistance; integrated circuit testing; plastic deformation; probes; surface topography; W-Al; adhesion; aluminum bonding pad; contact resistance; electrical contact; plastic deformation; probe card; reliability; surface roughness; tip shape; tungsten needle; wafer testing; Adhesives; Aluminum; Contacts; Needles; Probes; Rough surfaces; Surface roughness; Testing; Tungsten; Wafer bonding;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Electronic Components & Technology Conference, 2000. 2000 Proceedings. 50th

Conference_Location

Las Vegas, NV

Print_ISBN

0-7803-5908-9

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ECTC.2000.853317

Filename

853317