Probe tip with embedded skate
AssigneeFormFactor, Inc.
InventorsJanuary Kister, Chun-Chih Wang
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A skate on a tip of a probe for testing electrical devices is a reduced thickness probe tip contact. Such a skate can advantageously increase contact pressure, but it can also undesirably reduce probe lifetime due to rapid mechanical wear of the skate. Here multilayer skate probes are provided where the overall shape of the probe tip is a smooth curved surface, as opposed to the conventional fin-like skate configuration. The skate layer is the most mechanically wear-resistant layer in the structure, so abrasive processing of the probe tip leads to a probe skate defined by the skate layer. The resulting probes provide the advantage of increased contact pressure without the disadvantage of reduced lifetime.
Claims15
A method of making a probe for electrically contacting a device under test, the method comprising:
- providing a probe having a probe tip, wherein the probe tip includes a stack of two or more layers;
- wherein a contact region of the probe tip is formed by a smooth curved surface of the probe tip;
- wherein part or all of a selected layer of the stack of two or more layers has the greatest mechanical wear resistance of the stack of two or more layers;
- and
- wherein a distal peak of the smooth curved surface of the probe tip is formed by the selected layer.
A probe for electrically contacting a device under test, the probe comprising:
- a probe tip, wherein the probe tip includes a stack of two or more layers;
- wherein a contact region of the probe tip is formed by a smooth curved surface of the probe tip;
- wherein part or all of a selected layer of the stack of two or more layers has the greatest mechanical wear resistance of the stack of two or more layers;
- and
- wherein a distal peak of the smooth curved surface of the probe tip is formed by the selected layer.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.