A fully automatic test system for characterizing large-array fine-pitch micro-bump probe cards

A fully automatic test system for characterizing advanced probe cards able to probe on large-array fine-pitch micro-bumps (such as JEDEC's Wide-I/O Mobile DRAM interfaces [1, 2]) has been specified, developed, installed, and brought to a full-operational state. The system is based on a Cascade CM300 probe station from FormFactor and National Instruments PXI test instrumentation and complemented by in-house developed software for automatic test generation and data analysis and visualization. The system is successfully used in conjunction with FormFactor's Pyramid Probe
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RBI probe-card technology on WIO1 and WIO2 micro-bump arrays on 0300mm wafers designed and manufactured by IMEC. This paper describes the various system components in hardware and software, and experimental results obtained with several test wafers.