Texas Instruments Corporation

Michael P Harris

Adolphus E McClanahan

John D Wolfe

Frank J Mesa

One aspect of the invention provides an apparatus that includes a probe card having probe needles associated therewith. A temperature stabilizer element is couplable to the probe card. The temperature stabilizer is configured to either raise or lower a temperature of the probe needles to reduce movement of the probe needles.

Probe card and temperature stabilizer for testing semiconductor devices

A system includes a support member and a computer system. The support member holds and retains a probe card, which has an array of probe tips extending therefrom. The computer system includes a software program. The software causes the computer system to perform a method including the following. A position where electrical contact occurs between at least some of the probe tips of the probe tip array and a selected surface is determined through testing. Data for the positions where electrical contact occurs is recorded. The recorded data is sorted for a shortest distance where electrical contact occurred between each probe tip tested and the selected surface during the testing. The sorted data group is plotted on a three dimensional cartesian coordinate system. The system may be used for evaluating the planarity of the probe tip array and parallelism of the probe tip array relative to the selected surface.

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Garland, TX, United States of America

Michael P Harris