Contact carriers (tiles) for populating larger substrates with spring contacts
AssigneeFormFactor, Inc.
InventorsIgor Y. Khandros, Benjamin N. Eldridge, Gaetan L. Mathieu, Thomas H. Dozier, William D. Smith
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The invention relates to making temporary, pressure connections between electronic components and, more particularly, to techniques for performing test and burn-in procedures on semiconductor devices prior to their packaging, preferably prior to the individual semiconductor devices being singulated from a semiconductor wafer.
Claims21
Method of probing an electronic component by contacting the electronic component with a plurality of spring contact elements, the method comprising the steps of:
- providing a relatively large substrate which is as large as a testable area of the electronic component desired to be probed, said large substrate having a front surface;
- and
- mounting and connecting a plurality of at least two tile substrates to the front surface of the large substrate, each tile substrate having a plurality of spring contact elements extending from a surface thereof;
- and
- urging the large substrate and the electronic component towards one another so that the spring contact elements make contact with the electronic component.
Probe card assembly comprising:
- a probe card;
- a plurality of probe elements;
- a space transformer substrate having a top surface, a bottom surface, a first plurality of terminals disposed on the top surface, and a second plurality of terminals disposed on the bottom surface;
- at least two tile substrates, each having a top surface, a bottom surface;
- means for effecting electrical connections between the tile substrates and the space transformer substrate;
- and
- a plurality of probe elements disposed on the tip surface of the tile substrates.
A tile, adapted in use to be mounted as one of a plurality of tiles to a larger substrate, comprising:
- a tile substrate having two opposite surfaces;
- spring contacts extending from a one of the two surfaces;
- solderable terminals on an other of the two opposite surfaces;
- and
- means, within the tile substrate, for connecting the solderable terminals to the spring contacts.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.