International Business Machines Corporation

Michael Elsasser

Roland R Stohr

Johann Greschner

Thomas Bayer

Olaf Wolter

Jurgen Wittlinger

Heinrich Schmid

The contact probe arrangement includes a stack of perforated plates (1, 1a) through which extend a plurality contact probes. The stack of perforated plates consists of two kinds of plates. The first kind forms the lowermost plates (1a). They have circular or square holes permitting a vertical placing of the contact probes onto the contact pads (4) of the device (5) to be tested. The plates (1) of the second kind have oblong, rectangular, square, circular, elliptical or trapezoidal holes (3). With respect to the stacked plates of the second kind, alternate ones are offset against the two other adjacent plates which are aligned relative to each other, in such a manner that each contact probe is surrounded by part of the lower edge of the upper of two adjacent perforated plates, and part of the upper edge of the lower of two adjacent perforated plates. If axial stress is applied, the contact probe can thus not buckle any farther than to a part of the perforation wall limiting its maximum buckling. This ensures a sufficiently low contact resistance between the contact probe and the contact pad of the device to be tested. By using a corresponding number of perforated plates of the second kind the contact probes can adapt to height differences of the contact pads caused by irregularities in the surface of the device to be tested.

Contact probe arrangement for electrically connecting a test system to

The buckling beam probe contactor assembly comprises a number of square test probe arrays each containing a plurality of buckling beams in the form of continuous wires extending from the probe tips to a remote test apparatus. The buckling beams pass through an adjustable beam carrier block and through a number of guide plates which are kept in predetermined distances along the buckling beams by means of thin stabilizing rods arranged at the corners of the test probe array. The guide plates are inserted into grid-like frames which allow the arrangement of a plurality of test probe arrays close to each other wherein each array may contain test probes over its full area except for the locations occupied by the thin stabilizing rods.

Buckling beam test probe assembly

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Herrenberg, Germany

Michael Elsasser