JPH0727932B2 - Prober device - Google Patents

Description

Description: TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION The present invention is a prober device for testing electrical characteristics of a semiconductor integrated circuit formed on a silicon wafer by bringing a probe needle into contact with an input / output terminal (pad). In particular, it has a plurality of probing areas. The present invention relates to a prober device that enables a combined probing system.

[Technical Background of the Invention] A prober device that is widely used at present is a loader unit that mainly conveys wafers as shown in FIGS. 3 and 4.
11, the alignment mechanism 12 for aligning the conveyed wafer, the probing unit 13 for horizontally driving the wafer for measurement, and the test head 14 for measuring the chip on the wafer which is in contact with the probe needle. The unit 13 includes a chuck stage 17 that drives a chuck top 16 on which a wafer 15 is mounted in the XY axis directions. In such a prober device, the wafer 15 transferred from the loader unit 11 onto the chuck top 16 is aligned by the alignment mechanism 12, and then measured by the test head 14 while contacting the probe needle 18 with the chuck stage 17. It Such a probing process is not completed by itself. For example, in the case of marking a defective product or a chip (IC) with redundancy (redundancy), it may be repaired after the probing. It is necessary to check the needle marks and marking ink. For that purpose, the prober device is provided with a function for performing these steps, and a device for performing these steps is provided separately from the prober device. It takes a long time and hinders speeding up.

The alignment mechanism in such a prober apparatus generally aligns wafers by pattern recognition by a laser or CCD, which is very expensive and is a factor for increasing the price of the entire prober apparatus.

[Object of the Invention] The present invention has been made in view of the above conventional problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a low-cost prober apparatus for a high-speed device, which is capable of high-speed probing and compound probing.

[Summary of the Invention] In order to achieve such an object, in the prober apparatus of the present invention, a plurality of types of wafers are placed on one alignment mechanism to enable a plurality of probings and an arm is provided in the alignment section. Is provided to enable wafers to be transferred between a plurality of probing units. For example, a loader unit for transferring wafers, an alignment mechanism for aligning the transferred wafers, and a plurality of adjacent units to the alignment mechanism. The probe head comprises a probing section and test heads respectively installed on the plurality of probing sections.

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the entire double prober apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, in which loader parts 1 and 1'are arranged on both left and right sides of the apparatus. Each of the loader parts 1 and 1 ′ accommodates 1 to 4 cassettes (1 cassette to 1 to 25 wafers), and the left and right can be selected by a build-up structure. The alignment mechanism 2 is located substantially in the center of the apparatus, and aligns the XY axes with the wafer scrub line by a known alignment method such as a laser alignment method. Two probing parts 3 and 3'are provided on both sides of the alignment mechanism 2, and as shown in FIG. 2, chuck tops 4 and 4'which can be operated independently and those chuck tops 4 and 4'are arranged along the XY axis. It has a chuck stage (not shown) that is driven by. A head plate having ring inserts 5 and 5'mechanisms is arranged above the chuck stages. The ring insert mechanism 5, 5'mounts the probe card with the needle that contacts the pad of the chip on the wafer. Wafers are transferred between the loader parts 1 and 1'and the chuck tops 4 or 4'by vacuum tweezers that move up and down and back and forth and a transformer arm that is a first arm that rotates 180 degrees. Since these transfer mechanisms are known, their description is omitted. The transfer of the wafer between the chuck top 4 and the chuck top 4'is performed by a transformer arm 6 which is a second arm rotating 180 degrees. Test heads 7 and 7'rotating around a hinge portion are installed above the respective probing portions 3 and 3 '(in FIG. 1, the test heads 7 and 7'are in a rear standby position). Further, behind the respective probing portions 3 and 3 ', test head reducing mechanisms 8 and 8'for reducing the weight (30 to 100 kg) of the test heads 7 and 7'are installed. The test head reducing mechanism 8 includes a spring and a balancer.

A column of the microscope 9 is arranged between the test head reducing mechanisms 8 and 8 '. The microscope 9 is used when the operator aligns the tip pad and the probe needle at the start of measurement, and is common to both probing sections 3 and 3 '. A common operation panel 10 is provided on the front surfaces of the probing units 3 and 3 '. The power supply and the controller are common to both probing units 3 and 3.

The flow of the wafer in the above configuration will be described.
First, the wafers stored in the cassette of the loader unit 1 are taken out one by one by a tweezer arm and placed on a sub chuck (not shown), and then mounted on the chuck top 4 of the probing unit 3 by the transformer arm. Placed. Next, the chuck top 4 moves to the alignment mechanism 2, where fine alignment is performed so that the XY axis of the chuck stage and the scrub line of the wafer coincide with each other, and then probing is started on the chuck stage. In parallel with this, the wafer is transferred from the other loader unit 1'to the chuck top 4 ', aligned by the alignment mechanism 2, and probing is also performed on the other chuck stage.

In this way, only the alignment is performed alternately on the left and right,
Probing in parallel can significantly reduce probing time.

In the above description, probing is performed in parallel on both probing parts 3 and 3 ', but a marking system (marking defective chips with ink), an ink inspection system on the probing parts 3 and 3'. After probing with one of the probing parts by adding (a system for recognizing the ink of needle marks and markings), an ultraviolet irradiation system for EPROM, or a redundancy system (a system for repairing redundant ICs) It is also possible to use a decoding system in which the wafer after probing by the trans arm 6 is transferred to the other probing unit, and the other probing unit performs marking, inspection, ultraviolet irradiation of the EPROM chip, or IC repair.

[Effects of the Invention] As is clear from the above description, in the prober device of the present invention, since a plurality of probing portions are provided for one alignment mechanism, one expensive alignment mechanism is used for a plurality of conventional probers. It is possible to make the minute function wait, and to provide a low-priced prober device as a whole.

Further, since the parallel probing can be performed by the plurality of probing units, the probing time is greatly shortened.

Further, the decoding probing system can be realized by providing the alignment mechanism with a means for transporting the wafer and providing the probing part with additional functions such as marking and inspection.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of an embodiment of a prober device of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a plan view thereof, and FIGS. 3 and 4 are perspective views of a conventional prober device. 1, 1 '... loader unit 2 ... alignment mechanism 3, 3' ... probing unit 4, 4 '... chuck top 5, 5' ... ring insert mechanism 6 ... transformer arm 7, 7 '... test Heads 8 and 8 '... Test head reduction mechanism 9 ... Microscope 10 ... Operation panel

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A loader unit capable of accommodating a plurality of cassettes for accommodating semiconductor wafers, and a chuck for accommodating the semiconductor wafers. The chucks are driven in the XY axis directions to perform alignment, and the semiconductor wafers are probed. And a first arm for carrying the semiconductor wafer onto the chuck of the probing unit from the cassette of the loader unit, and an alignment of the semiconductor wafer placed on the chuck. In a prober device having an alignment mechanism for
One alignment mechanism is arranged in the central portion of the probe device, and a plurality of probing portions are provided adjacent to the alignment mechanism. The alignment mechanism includes a chuck of one probing portion and a chuck of another probing portion. And a second arm for carrying the semiconductor wafer between the prober devices.