Prober for electrical measurement of potentials in the interior of ultra-fine semiconductor devices, and method of measuring electrical characteristics with said prober

A prober for measuring electrical characteristics of a semiconductor device, comprising:

• contact means having a contactor with a sharp tip provided at a position close above a position of the semiconductor device at which the electrical characteristics are to be measured,
• drive means for driving said contact means in the direction of the x-, y- and z-axes on the nm order ,
• an x- and y-axis drive circuit that supplies drive current to said drive means for driving said contact means in the direction of the x- and y-axes,
• signal supply means for supplying a signal between a surface of the semiconductor device and said contact means,
• detection means for detecting the signal from said supply means and providing an output signal indicative of at least one of voltage current and potential information in said semiconductor device,
• a z-axis drive control circuit that supplies drive current to said drive means for driving said contact means in the x-axis direction by using the output signal from said detection means as a feedback input signal,
• a circuit for providing output to the z-axis drive control circuit of a signal that halts the driving of said contact means in the z-axis direction upon detection by said detection means of an abnormal signal indicating that said contact means is in electrical contact with said semiconductor device,
• a switch that connects said contact means to said detection means,
• a controller that supplies signals for-driving said contact means in the x, y- and z-axis directions, preset tunneling current signals for said z-axis drive control circuit and preset voltage signals for variable DC bias voltage of said detection means, acquires and stores x, y and z positional information for said contact means along with said at least one of voltage, current and potential information from said detection means, and performs image processing on said information, and
• a display device that displays said information and image information.