1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a connection pin for electrically connecting a plurality of substrates which constitute a probe card for measuring electrical characteristics of a semiconductor device such as an LSI chip.
2. Description of the Background Art
There are a lateral type called cantilever type and a vertical type called perpendicular type in a probe card which measures electrical characteristics of a semiconductor device such as a LSI chip. The lateral type of probe card has an aspect which is not suitable for measuring many chips at the same time, which is required under the circumstances in which large-scale integration of the LSI chip is implemented and a tester is multiplexed, so that it is less used nowadays. Meanwhile, since the vertical type of probe card can use many probes and provides a high degree of freedom for a probe arrangement and it is suitable for measuring many chips at the same time, it is mainly used at present.
The vertical type of probe card comprises a main substrate comprising electrodes connected to electrodes of a measuring device, a space transformer comprising electrodes connected to electrodes of a tested object, and a sub-substrate provided between the main substrate and the space transformer, and a connection pin is used to electrically connecting them.
When the semiconductor device such as the LSI chip is tested, it is required that a plurality of chips are measured at the same time. Recently, there is a demand for a probe card having high stability in electrical contact, a high performance and high reliability even when the number of electrodes of the probe card used in the test is further increased.
As the connection pin for electrically connecting the substrates, as shown in FIG. 5, Japanese Patent No. 2781881 discloses the connection pin which is soldered to a second substrate and elastically comes into contact with a through-hole in a first substrate. This type of connection pin has been mainly used conventionally. However, according to this type of connection pin, when a substrate constitution of the probe card is changed according to the kind of the semiconductor device to be tested, since the connection pin cannot be removed from the second substrate, the constitution which can correspond to the semiconductor device to be tested is limited. Furthermore, when a connection pin is bent or broken, since it is not possible only that connection pin is removed, the second substrate has to be entirely exchanged in that case.
Still further, since the plurality of connection pins are completely fixed to the second substrate, if each connection pin is slightly shifted in position, it is difficult for the connection pin to be inserted. Therefore, it is necessary to solder the connection pin one-by-one, keeping extremely high positioning precision at the time of manufacturing, so that it takes time to manufacture the substrate.
[Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent No. 2781881
It is an object of the present invention to provide a connection pin which can be easily detached one-by-one and provides stable electrical connection even after repetitive use, in a probe card for testing a semiconductor device.
In order to solve the above problems, a connection pin according to the present invention detachably provides electrical connection between first and second substrates having through-holes and comprises a first contact part which comes in contact with the through-hole provided in the first substrate, a first support part which supports the first contact part, a stopper which abuts on the surfaces of the first and second substrates, a second contact part which comes in contact with the through-hole provided in the second substrate and a second support part which supports the second contact part, in which the first and second contact parts have spring properties and elastically come into contact with side walls of the through-holes provided in the first and second substrates.
In addition, in order to solve the above problems, according to the connection pin of the present invention, there are provided a plurality of first and/or second contact parts.
Thus, according to the present invention, the connection pin detachably provides electrical connection between the first and second substrates having the through-holes, and comprises the first contact part which comes in contact with the through-hole provided in the first substrate, the first support part which supports the first contact part, the stopper which abuts on the surfaces of the first and second substrates, the second contact part which comes in contact with the through-hole provided in the second substrate, and the second support part which supports the second contact part, in which the first and second contact parts have spring properties and elastically come into contact with the side walls of the through-holes provided in the first and second substrates. As a result, it is easily detachable one-by-one and provides stable electrical connection even after repetitive use.
In addition, according to the connection pin of the present invention, since there are provided the plurality of first and/or second contact parts, its contact area is increased and further stable electrical connection is provided.
A probe card A, as apart of it is shown in
As shown in
According to the main substrate 1, the first connection electrodes are arranged on the first main surface 1a so as to correspond to electrodes of the measuring device by transforming a narrow interval space between the adjacent second connection electrodes on the second main surface 1b to a wide interval space between the adjacent first connection electrodes on the first main surface 1a.
As shown in
The through-holes 9 having electrically conductive plated layers penetrate between the first main surface 3a and the second main surface 3b and they are electrically connected to a plurality of third connection electrodes 15 provided on the first main surface 3a.
The space in the sub-substrate 3 between the third connection electrode 15 of the sub-substrate 3 and the second connection electrode 5 of the main substrate 1 is fixed by soldering or a conductor 13 made of an electrically conductive resin or the like, and the part other than the conductor between the second main surface 1b of the main substrate 1 and the first main surface 3a of the sub-substrate 3 is filled with a resin material 14 for bonding the substrates. Thus, the sub-substrate 3 is integrally provided with the main substrate 1 while it is electrically connected to the main substrate 1.
As shown in
As shown in
The adjacent contactors 6 on the space transformer 2 correspond to electrodes of the semiconductor device (not shown) arranged at narrow intervals.
The connection pin 7 detachably provided in the through-hole 19 of the space transformer 2 is detachably inserted into the through-hole 9 of the sub-substrate 3 and as shown in
The connection pin 7 of the present invention is manufactured of a conductive material such as copper (Cu), nickel (Ni) or the like by etching, pressing or electroforming and preferably plated with gold (Au), tin (Sn) or the like. As shown in
According to the connection pin 7 of the present invention, when the first contact part 70 and the first support part 71 are inserted into the through-hole 9 of the sub-substrate 3, the first contact part 70 comes in contact with the inner wall of the through-hole having the conductive plated layer so that the through-hole 9 of the sub-substrate 3 and the connection pin 7 can be electrically connected as shown in
The first contact part 70 and the first support part 71 of the connection pin 7 are inserted into the through-hole 9 of the sub-substrate 3 such that the contact part elastically come into contact with the inner surface of the through-hole 9, and the second contact part 73 and the second support part 74 are inserted into the through-hole 19 provided in the space transformer 2 such that the contact part elastically comes into contact with the inner wall of the through-hole 19. Thus, the through-hole 19 of the space transformer 2 and the connection pin 7 are electrically connected, so that the through-hole 9 of the sub-substrate 3 and the through-hole 19 of the space transformer 2 are electrically connected. Of course, the space transformer 2 and the connection pin 7 can be easily separated.
In this case, when the space transformer 2 is separated from the sub-substrate 3, the member in which the connection pin 7 remains can be selected by providing a difference between spring pressure of the first contact part 70 of the connection pin 7 on the side of the sub-substrate 3 and spring pressure between the through-hole 19 provided in the space transformer 2 and the second contact part 73 of the connection pin 7. That is, if the spring pressure on the side of the sub-substrate 3 is higher than that on the side of the space transformer 2, when the space transformer 2 is separated, the connection pin 7 surely remains in the sub-substrate 3 (if the spring pressure on the side of the space transformer 2 is higher, the connection pin 7 remains in the space transformer 2).
Since the connection pin 7 shown in
Although the configuration shown in
According to the connection pin 7 shown in
As shown in
The connection pin 7 according to the present invention may have a constitution in which a plurality of first contact parts 70 are provided as shown in
As can be clear from the above description, the connection pin electrically connects the first and second substrates having through-holes in which it is detachably inserted, and the connection pin comprises a first contact part which comes in contact with the through-hole of the first substrate, a first support part which supports the first contact part, a stopper which abuts on the surfaces of the first and second substrates, a second contact part which comes in contact with the through-hole in the second substrate, and a second support part which supports the second contact part. Since the first and second contact parts are constituted so as to have spring properties and elastically come into contact with side walls of the through-holes provided in the first and second substrates, the connection pin is detachable one-by-one and it can provide stable electrical connection even after repetitive use.
In addition, according to the connection pin of the present invention, since there may be provided the plurality of the first and/or the second contact parts, the contact area is multiplied and further stable electrical connection can be provided.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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JP2003-336400 | Sep 2003 | JP | national |