One or more embodiments of the present invention relate to contactors used for making connections to devices such as, for example and without limitation, microelectronic devices. In particular, one or more embodiments of the present invention relate to controlled force contactors used for testing and burning-in microelectronic devices. In further particular, one or more embodiments of the present invention relate to a compliant cylindrical metal contactor for making electrical connections to high performance microelectronic devices such as, for example, and without limitation, integrated circuits (“ICs”), semiconductor wafers, wafer probe cards, circuit boards, cables, microprocessor chips and RAM memories.
Contactors including sockets, probes, spring pins and interposers are routinely used in systems for: (a) testing electronic device performance (an assortment of socket types has been developed to connect to a device under test (“DUT”) having a wide variety of terminals and configurations), or (b) burning-in electronic devices at elevated temperatures. Miniature contactors are used widely in such sockets to make contact to terminals on microelectronic devices. For example, a socket used for test or burn-in applications will typically have contactors with mechanical compliance that accommodates imperfections in a DUT as well as warping and non-planarity of a printed circuit board to which the socket is attached.
Prior art sockets are differentiated typically according to the type of terminals on a DUT, and according to an intended end use (i.e., application). For example, contactors used in sockets are typically designed to make electrical connection to terminals on microelectronic devices wherein the types of device terminals contacted by sockets include pin grid arrays (“PGAs”), J-leads, gull-wing leads, dual in-line (“DIP”) leads, ball grid arrays (“BGAs” such as, for example, a two dimensional array of solder bump terminals on a microelectronic device), column grid arrays (“CGAs”), flat metal pads (sometimes referred to as land grid arrays (“LGAs”)), and many others. Many contactor technologies have been developed to provide sockets for microelectronic devices having this variety of terminals.
In addition to the foregoing, further differentiation among prior art sockets refers to low insertion force (“LIF”) sockets, zero insertion force (“ZIF”) sockets, auto-load sockets, burn-in sockets, high performance test sockets, and production sockets (i.e., sockets for use in products). In further addition to the foregoing, low cost prior art sockets for burn-in and product applications typically incorporate contactors of stamped and formed springs to contact terminals on a DUT. In still further addition to the foregoing, for high pin-count prior art sockets, a cam is often used to urge device terminals laterally against corresponding contactors to make good contact to each spring while allowing a low or zero insertion force.
For specialized applications, prior art sockets have used a wide variety of contactors, including anisotropic conductive sheets, metal filled elastomeric buttons, flat springs, lithographically formed springs, fuzz buttons (available from Cinch, Inc. of Lombard, Ill.), spring wires, buckling beams, barrel connectors, and spring forks, among others. Prior art sockets intended for applications where many test mating cycles (also referred to as socket mount-demount cycles) are required typically use spring pin contactors of the type exemplified by Pogo® spring contacts (available from Everett Charles Technologies of Pomona, Calif.).
Spring probes for applications in the electronics test industry are available in many configurations, including simple pins and coaxially grounded pins. Most prior art spring probes consist of a coil spring disposed between a first post (for contacting terminals on the DUT) and a second post (for contacting contacts on a circuit board—a device under test board or “DUT board”). Spring probes are designed typically to undergo about 500,000 insertions before failure.
Spring probe contactors of the prior art provide reliable, high performance contact to terminals on many types of microelectronic device. A continuing increase in areal density of terminals has driven terminal spacing down below 0.4 mm, thereby increasing the cost and complexity of spring probe contactors. In particular, spring probes are typically made by a manual procedure wherein: (a) a miniature post is inserted into a sleeve; and (b) a spring and a second post are then inserted and crimped in place. This manual procedure becomes more difficult and expensive for the small contactors required for terminal spacing below 0.4 mm. Further, attempts to simplify spring probes by using only a coil spring as the contactor have largely failed. In a spring pin of the Pogo® type, the moving post must make good contact with the conductive sleeve to avoid signal current's passing through the coil and producing undesirable inductance and resistance. A coil spring at such small dimensions has too high an electrical resistance and inductance to be useful for any but the least demanding socket applications.
Spring probe contactors typically have a plurality of spring pin contactors disposed in an array of apertures formed through a dielectric holder. By way of example, a high performance, prior art test socket may incorporate a plurality of Pogo® spring contacts, each of which is held in a pin holder with an array of holes through a thin dielectric plate. The dielectric material in a high performance, prior art test socket is typically selected from a group of dimensionally stable polymer materials including: glass reinforced Torlon 5530 (available from Quadrant Engineering Plastic Products, Inc. of Reading, Pa.); Vespel; Ultem 2000 (available from GE Company GE Plastics of Pittsfield, Mass.); polyether ether ketone (PEEK); liquid crystal polymer; and others. The individual Pogo® spring contacts are typically selected and designed for signal conduction at an impedance level of approximately fifty (50) ohms.
The recent growth in use of BGA terminals for integrated circuit (“IC”) packaging has resulted in use of new and varied sockets adapted to the BGA terminals for increasing terminal count and area density. BGA sockets have evolved in several directions. One type involves use of a cam driven spring wire to contact the side of each ball on a BGA package. Another type involves use of spring pins or Pogo® spring contacts that have been adapted for use in BGA sockets for certain applications in which the high cost of the socket is acceptable.
Low-cost sockets for mass market applications have evolved the use of stamped and formed spring contactors that cradle each ball of the BGA and provide some measure of mechanical compliance needed to urge a spring connector into contact with a mating ball. Variations of stamped and formed springs are configured to use two or more formed springs to grip each ball, and thereby, to make positive electrical contact while retaining the ball mechanically. Miniaturization and density of mechanically stamped and formed springs are limited by present capabilities to a certain minimum size. As such, sockets with such contactors are limited in density by the complexity of stamping and forming very small miniaturized springs. Further, the mechanical compliance of a stamped and formed spring is typically small in a vertical direction perpendicular to a substrate of a ball contact. Because of small compliance in a vertical direction, a miniature stamped and formed spring may be unable to accommodate motion of a contactor support relative to a ball mated to it, thereby allowing vibration, mechanical shock load and forces, flexure, and the like to cause the connector to slide over the surface of the ball and potentially lose contact.
Many prior art sockets are intended to provide reliable and repeatable electrical contact to electrical terminals without causing damage to either. As such, the contactors of the socket must provide a low resistance connection to mating terminals over repeated insertions of devices. A continuing increase in the areal density of terminals on high performance microelectronic devices increases the difficulty and cost of providing reliable contactors.
One or more embodiments of the present invention, solve one or more of the above-identified issues. In accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention, an electrical contactor, for example, a miniature electrical contactor is provided for making electrical connection between mating terminals including for example and without limitation, a bump (a solder bump) of a ball grid array (“BGA”), a contact pad of a land grid array (“LGA”), and a flat electrical contact on a microelectronic device. In particular, in accordance with one or more embodiments, a contactor comprises: an insulative sleeve having a hole therethrough; and a metal tube having a cylindrical wall being slidably disposed in the hole; wherein: (a) two or more elongated slots through the cylindrical wall extend from a first circumferential collar of the tube to a second circumferential collar of the tube; (b) the two or more slots form two or more elongated resilient legs connecting the first collar and the second collar; and (c) a portion of each elongated leg is disposed in the hole.
Dimensions of contactor 100 for a particular embodiment depend upon design issues such as, for example and without limitation, a spacing between adjacent contactors in a socket, signal impedance, total current carried by a contactor, and a range of axial compliance required of the contactor. One or more embodiments of axially compliant contactor 100 may be fabricated from hypodermic 304 stainless steel tubing available from K-Tube Corporation, Poway, Calif. 92064, in sizes ranging, for example and without limitation, from an outer diameter of 0.025 millimeter to 5.0 millimeters. In accordance with one or more such embodiments, slots 1121 to 112n are cut through the cylindrical wall of tube 128 using a fiber optic laser. By way of example, slots 1121 to 112n are shown as straight slots aligned parallel to the axis of tube 128. However, embodiments of the present invention are not limited to such a configuration, and further embodiments of the present invention include one or more of the elongated legs along a length of tube 128 that are curved or have some further shapes such as an “S” or a saw tooth or a helical shape (for example, elongated legs formed by helical slots cut lengthwise along a midsection of the tube), and so forth. In addition, still further embodiments of the present invention include one or more elongated legs whose width varies along the length of the leg so that, for example and without limitation, the width of the leg is different at least two positions along the slot. The length of elongated legs 1141 to 114n is preferably greater than ten times the minimum width of a leg, as measured in the axial direction, although lengths outside this range may be suitable for legs of different shapes. In accordance with one or more further such embodiments, after slots 1121 to 112n are formed, tube 128 may be plated with, for example and without limitation, about 0.010 millimeters of copper, and then plated with about 0.02 millimeters of nickel and about 0.001 millimeters of hard gold. Those of ordinary skill in the art will readily understand that contactor 100 may be made using alternative processing methods including, without limitation, pattern plating, photolithographic etching, mandrel plating and sputter ion deposition. It will also be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art that metals other than stainless steel 304 may be used for the tube 128. By way of example and without limitation, nitinol (Ni/Ti alloys), Monel, tungsten, tungsten alloys, nickel-cobalt alloys, nickel-tungsten alloys, 440C steel, beryllium-copper alloys, multi-layer metals, and other metals may be used. In accordance with one or more such embodiments, coatings may be applied to a contactor to increase its conductivity or to increase its resilience. For example, nickel-copper-gold plating or silver plating increases the conductance of the contactor, and a thin plating of nickel-cobalt alloy improves its resilience.
Elongated legs 1141 to 114n of
In accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention, terminals 140 and 142 are shown in
As has been described above, and in accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention, a contactor comprises a hollow cylindrical metal tube having an array of lengthwise elongated slots through the wall of the tube wherein (a) the array of slots forms a plurality of elongated resilient metallic legs and (b) each of the resilient legs is connected to a first cylindrical collar (the term “cylindrical collar” refers to a segment or solid band of the tube that extends around the circumferential girth of the tube and the term “girth” refers to a circumferential distance around the tube) at a first end of the tube and to a second cylindrical collar at a second end of the tube. In accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention, axial resilience of the contactor is provided by inward flexure of each of the plurality of resilient legs toward the axis of the tube, and such axial resilience acts to provide reliable electrical contact between terminals urged axially into contact with a first end and with a second end of the contactor. In accordance with one or more further embodiments of the present invention, a contactor may comprise more than two circumferential collars interconnected by elongated resilient legs thereby forming a plurality of axially compliant segments of the contactor.
In accordance with one or more embodiments, initially, in a quiescent state, each leg falls substantially within a surface contour of the metal tube. Then, during operation of a contactor, a metallic terminal is urged into contact with each end of the tube, causing the contactor to compress in a direction along the axis of the tube by inward flexure of the resilient legs in the wall of the tube. The contactor may also be compliant in a bending mode wherein the axis of the tube is curved by a terminal being urged radially against an end of the tube.
Sockets for microelectronic devices typically have a plurality of contactors disposed in an array of apertures formed through an insulative holder. By way of example and without limitation, a high performance socket may incorporate a plurality of contactors 100, each of which is held in an array of holes 156 through holder plate 152 comprising a dielectric sheet. In accordance with one or more such embodiments of the present invention, the material of the dielectric sheet is selected from a group of dimensionally stable polymer materials including, without limitation: glass reinforced Torlon 5530 available from Quadrant Engineering Plastic Products, Inc. of Reading, Pa.; Vespel; Ultem 2000 available from GE Company GE Plastics of Pittsfield, Mass.; PEEK; liquid crystal polymer; and others. Further, in accordance with one or more such embodiments, holder plate 152 may comprise a plurality of layers including metals, polymers, woven glass layers, aramid fiber layers, and the like. Still further, in accordance with one or more such embodiments, one or more of the layers of insulative sheet 152 may have features that engage contactor 100 and retain it in the holder plate. By way of example, and in accordance with one or more such embodiments, a layer of insulative sheet 152 my urge against legs 1141 to 114n, thereby biasing them inwardly away from their initial position in the quiescent state, and thereby holding contactor 100 within sheet 152.
Device 248 in
BGA device 348 of
Embodiments of the present invention described above are exemplary. As such, many changes and modifications may be made to the description set forth above by those of ordinary skill in the art while remaining within the scope of the invention. In addition, materials, methods, and mechanisms suitable for fabricating embodiments of the present invention have been described above by providing specific, non-limiting examples and/or by relying on the knowledge of one of ordinary skill in the art. Materials, methods, and mechanisms suitable for fabricating various embodiments or portions of various embodiments of the present invention described above have not been repeated, for sake of brevity, wherever it should be well understood by those of ordinary skill in the art that the various embodiments or portions of the various embodiments could be fabricated utilizing the same or similar previously described materials, methods or mechanisms. As such, the scope of the invention should be determined with reference to the appended claims along with their full scope of equivalents.
This patent application relates to U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/171,817 filed Apr. 22, 2009 from which priority is claimed under 35 USC §119(e), and which provisional application is incorporated herein in its entirety.
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Number | Date | Country | |
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Number | Date | Country | |
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61171817 | Apr 2009 | US |