The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Aug. 29, 2000
Filed:
Jun. 03, 1998
Benjamin N Eldridge, Danville, CA (US);
Gary W Grube, Pleasanton, CA (US);
Igor Y Khandros, Orinda, CA (US);
Gaetan L Mathieu, Livermore, CA (US);
FormFactor, Inc., Livermore, CA (US);
Abstract
Contact structures exhibiting resilience or compliance for a variety of electronic components are formed by bonding a free end of a wire to a substrate, configuring thw wire into a wire stem having a springable shape, serving thw wire stem, and overcoating the wire stem with at least one layer of a material chosen primarily for its structural (resiliency, compliance) characteristics. A variety of techniques for configuring, serving, and overcoating the wire stem are disclosed. In an exemplary embodiment, a free end of a wire stem is bonded to a contact area on a substrate, the wire stem is configured to ahve a springable shape, the wire stem is served to be free-standing by an electrical discharge, and the free-standing wire stem is overcoating by plating.