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:
Mar. 20, 2001
Filed:
Oct. 31, 1997
Krzysztof Dabrowiecki, San Leandro, CA (US);
January Kister, Menlo Park, CA (US);
Probe Technology, Inc., Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
This disclosure proposes an assembly structure for building probe cards to test square integrated circuit chips. The test probe card assembly structure has one or more wings located at 90° angles to each other upon which probes are laid in a parallel manner for attachment to a probe card. This allows 10 construction of the probe card so that probes touch contacts directly. The probe tips do not touch the contacts at an angle &thgr;, called the fan out angle. The probes also do not differ in their inclination angles &bgr;. As a result, the force at which the many probe tips touch the contacts is relatively constant throughout. In addition, the probe tips are less likely to scrub past the surface of the contact onto the insulation surface of the chip and in doing so damage it. The test probe card assembly structure also contains an epoxy groove, which controls epoxy flow so that the position of the probes stays aligned in the correct plane. The epoxy groove also prevents variance in beam length. An alternative embodiment of the present invention can make probe cards for simultaneously testing multiple chips and includes a probe card for testing multiple chips.