Design, Fabrication and Mechancial Characterization of Vertical Micro Contact Probe

In this paper, the new vertical micro contact probe for the testing of circuits in chips is designed, and then the mechanical behavior is characterized. Vertical micro contact probes are used for circuit inspection tool `probe card' which has irregular area arrays and narrow pitch electrode pads. The new micro contact probes are designed to fulfill the requirements of 100μm electrode pitch, minimum 20μm over drive and minimum 20mN force to break the surface native oxide layer. Zigzag spring shaped vertical probes are designed, and fabricated with Ni-Co alloy by electroplating method. Mechanical characterizations of micro contact probes are performed by compression tester. Finally, these experiment results are compared with simulation results and the error sources are analyzed.