JPH01125844A - Probe device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To make possible a continuous and automatic measurement using a probing device for a longer time and to contrive the improvement of productivity by a method wherein carriers provided in a stocker, in which a plurality of the carriers are housed, are installed at a previously set carrier installing position. CONSTITUTION:Each carrier placing shelf 6 is descended at a point of time when the measurement of wafers 2 on the lowest stage of the carrier placing shelf 6 ends and the central stage of the carrier placing shelf 6 is installed at a height position where wafers 2 can be carried-out and carried-in by a vacuum pincette 10 located at a previously set height position. Here, the measurement of wafers 2 housed in wafer carriers 5 placed on this central stage of the shelf 6 is again repeated, each shelf 6 is again descended at a point of time when the measurement of the wafers 2 on the central stage of the shelf 6 ends, the upper stage of the cassette placing shelf 6 is installed at the prescribed position and the measurement of wafers 2 is executed. By enabling a multitude of the wafer carriers 5 to house in a probing devide in such a way, a long time continuous measurement in the probing device becomes possible.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention] [Purpose of the invention] (Industrial application field) The present invention relates to a probe device.

(Prior Art) A probe device measures the electrical characteristics of each of a large number of IC chips formed on an object to be measured, such as a semiconductor wafer, and eliminates IC chips determined to be defective before the assembly process. This is a device that contributes to cost reduction and productivity improvement.

In recent years, demand for high-performance IC chips with higher integration and higher speed has increased. Corresponding to this, probe devices that measure high-performance IC chips must also take measures. Particularly in probe measurements, it is necessary to perform continuous automatic measurements for a long time. This continuous automatic probe measurement is usually performed on 25 wafers.
The measurement was carried out on a maximum of four carriers, with the sheets stored in one carrier, and after the measurement of these four carriers was completed, the operator manually replaced the carriers.

(Problems to be solved by the invention) As a result, operations by the operator become complicated and a large amount of dust is generated by the operator, which is contradictory to unmanned and dust-free semiconductor manufacturing processes, and improves quality and yield. This could lead to a decrease in productivity.

The present invention has been made in response to the above-mentioned problems, and provides a probe device that enables continuous automatic measurement using the probe device over a long period of time and improves productivity.

[Structure of the invention]

(Means for Solving the Problems) The present invention provides a probe device that transports and measures an object to be measured from a carrier provided at a predetermined position to a measuring section, in which a plurality of carriers are provided in a stocker in which a plurality of carriers are stored. The present invention provides a probe device characterized in that it is equipped with means for installing each of the carriers at the predetermined carrier positions.

(Effect) By installing each carrier provided in a stocker containing multiple carriers at a predetermined position for installing a carrier, continuous automatic measurement using the probe device can be performed for a longer period of time, and production can be improved. The effect of making it possible to improve sexual performance can be obtained.

(Embodiment) Next, an embodiment of the probe device of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

This probe device ω is as shown in FIG.

A wafer stocker ■ that stores objects to be measured, such as semiconductor wafers ■, and semiconductor wafers transported from this stocker ■
It consists of a measuring section (a) that accurately aligns the electrical characteristics and tests the electrical characteristics. As shown in FIG. 1, a large number of wafer carriers 0 are stored in the wafer stocker 0, which is the wafer storage section. As shown in FIG. 4, each wafer carrier (2) can accommodate, for example, 25 semiconductor wafers (25) in tandem in parallel with predetermined intervals in the thickness direction. The wafer carrier (2) in which a large number of semiconductor wafers (2) are stored in this manner is placed on a carrier mounting shelf (2) made of a rectangular plate-like body, as shown in FIG. For example, four cassettes are placed in a horizontal row at predetermined intervals, with the wafer carrier (2) facing forward in the loading/unloading direction of the wafers (4). In addition, a microswitch (not shown) is attached to the carrier ■ placement position of the carrier placement shelf (to) with screws, etc., and when the wafer carrier ■ is placed in a predetermined position, the microswitch is turned on. Therefore, it becomes possible to reliably detect that the wafer carrier (2) is placed at a predetermined position on the carrier placement shelf 0. In addition, here wafer carrier 0
If the top and bottom surfaces are configured asymmetrically, and both ends of the bottom surface are also configured asymmetrically, the microswitch will turn on only when the edge ■ provided at the bottom of the wafer carrier ■ is placed on the microswitch. , the microswitch can be set so as not to turn on at the other end of the bottom surface and the top surface. It is possible to easily detect the simple direction of the wafer carrier ■Φ on the carrier mounting shelf 0.

As mentioned above, the carrier mounting tame on which the microswitch is attached and on which four wafer carriers can be mounted is rotated by a rotating shaft (8) engaged with a motor (not shown).
Both ends are held. A plurality of carrier mounting shelves 0, for example, three carrier mounting shelves 0, can be held in parallel in a vertical column at a predetermined interval on this rotating shaft (8). In addition, a guide shaft (9) is provided in the square of each carrier mounting shelf (■), and the carrier mounting shelf 5! Shelf 0 remains parallel. By selectively driving a motor (not shown) in the forward and reverse directions, each carrier mounting shelf 0 is synchronously moved up and down in the up and down direction. As a result, each carrier mounting shelf (0) can be installed at a desired height position.The semiconductor wafer (i), which is the object to be measured, is transferred from the stocker (i) configured as described above to the measurement unit (a). During this transportation, a loading/unloading mechanism such as a vacuum tweezers (10) is provided for loading/unloading a large number of semiconductor wafers (1) stored in the wafer carrier (1) one by one.The vacuum tweezers (10) , as shown in Figure 2, the wafer carrier ■
It is possible to slide parallel to the wafer ■ on the wafer loading/unloading surface. In addition, vacuum tweezers (10
) A vacuum hole is provided on the wafer placement surface at the tip of the top surface. Further, the vacuum tweezers (10) are attached to a lifting mechanism that is movable in the vertical direction. The wafer (1) carried out by the vacuum tweezers (10) is placed on a pre-alignment stage (11) for preliminary positioning. A vacuum hole is provided in the wafer placement surface of this pre-alignment stage (11), and the pre-alignment stage (11) is rotatable about the center of the wafer placement surface. Here, a sensor using laser light, such as a photointerrupter, is provided to detect the peripheral edge of wafer (2) when the wafer (2) is rotated. The pre-positioned wafer (2) is transported to the wafer mounting table (12) of the measuring section (A) by a transport mechanism such as a rotating arm. The wafer mounting surface (12) of the wafer mounting table (12) is provided with a vacuum hole for vacuum suctioning the wafer (2). Furthermore, it is movable in the X direction, Y direction, Z direction, and rotational direction. Also, within the movement range of the wafer mounting table (12),
An alignment section is provided to accurately position the wafer (2), and this alignment section is equipped with a recognition mechanism using a laser or a pattern recognition mechanism using a COD camera. Further, above a predetermined position of the wafer mounting table (12), a blobbing card (1
3) is installed. This broving card (13
) is equipped with a large number of probe needles (14).

The tip arrangement pattern of each of the probe needles (14) is installed in an insulated state at a position corresponding to the electrode pad arrangement pattern of the IC chip formed on the wafer (1) of the type to be measured. A microscope (15) or a TV camera is installed above the blobbing card (13) as described above. While monitoring this microscope (I5), the movement of the wafer mounting table (12) is finely adjusted by operating a joystick or the like (not shown). ) and IC
We teach measurement operations such as positioning the electrode pad arrangement pattern of the chip, and then use the taught contents to
The information is stored in a memory mechanism built into the probe device.

Next, the operation of the above-mentioned probe device (2) will be explained.

First, four wafer carriers ■ each containing, for example, 25 semiconductor wafers ■, which are objects to be measured, are placed on predetermined positions of each cassette mounting shelf 0 provided in the stocker ■. . This placement may be performed manually by an operator, or by a robot such as an automation system compatible with FA. At this time, it is possible to determine whether each wafer carrier (2) has been placed at an accurate position by using a microswitch provided at a predetermined position. Here, when a predetermined wafer carrier 0 has been placed on each carrier placement shelf 0, this is signaled to the CPU built in the probe device (1). Although this signal may be manually operated by the operator, it is preferable that the signal from the microswitch is analyzed and controlled to automatically signal. Next, a predetermined cassette mounting shelf (eg, the lowest cassette mounting shelf 0) is installed at a predetermined height position. That is, the wafer (1) is placed at a height position where it can be carried in and out using vacuum tweezers (10). In this installation, a motor (not shown) is selectively driven in the forward and reverse directions, and each guide shaft (9)
While maintaining the parallelism of the cassette mounting shelves 0, each carrier mounting shelf 0 is moved up and down synchronously by a rotary shaft engaged with a motor to install it.

Next, the semiconductor wafer ■ which is the object to be measured is placed on the carrier mounting shelf ■ from the wafer carrier ■ at a predetermined position.
is transported to the measuring section (a). This transportation is carried out by inserting a loading/unloading mechanism, such as vacuum tweezers (lO), into a gap on the back surface of a predetermined number of semiconductor wafers (2) stored in a stocker (1) and stored in a predetermined number of wafer carriers (2).

Here, the vacuum tweezers (10) are raised or the wafer carrier 0 is lowered, and the back surface of the semiconductor wafer (1) is vacuum-adsorbed by the vacuum hole provided on the upper surface of the vacuum tweezers (10). The wafer (1) fixed on the vacuum tweezers (10) is carried out by sliding the vacuum tweezers (10) and placed on the pre-alignment stage (11) for preliminary positioning. The placed wafer (2) is fixed to the pre-alignment stage (11) by vacuum suction, and then the pre-alignment stage (11) is rotated, for example, by 360 degrees, and the orientation flat etc. of the wafer (2) is detected by a laser.

In this way, the pre-alignment stage (11) can improve the accuracy by ±
After preliminary alignment up to about 1°, the wafer is placed on the wafer mounting table (12) of the measuring section using a transport mechanism such as a rotating arm. This wafer mounting table (12) is movable in the X direction, Y direction, Z direction, and rotational direction, and after fixing the wafer by vacuum suction, it is moved using the laser recognition mechanism provided in the alignment section or the COD camera. Accurate alignment is achieved using the wafer's scribe line etc. as a reference using the pattern recognition mechanism. After this alignment, move the wafer mounting table (12) and move the blobbing card (
13) Place the wafer (■) in a downward facing position. That is,
A large number of IC chips are regularly formed on the semiconductor wafer (2), and the IC chips formed at predetermined positions are attached to the probe needle (14) of the blobbing card (13).
It is installed at the tip of the

At this time, the electrode pad arrangement pattern of the IC chip and the probe needle (14) arrangement pattern of the probing card (13) are aligned by the above teaching operation. Next, the wafer (1) and the blobbing card (13) are moved relative to each other in the vertical direction so that they approach each other.

For example, the wafer mounting table (12) on which the wafer ■ is placed is raised, and each probe needle (14) is attached to the I formed on the wafer ■.
Bring it into contact with the electrode pad of the C chip. Here, the wafer (2) is further raised in a continuous motion for the purpose of destroying the oxide film coated on the electrode pad. In other words, set the overdrive to 6, for example.
The probe needle (14) is used to destroy the oxide film over a thickness of 0 to 100 μm, and each electrode pad and each probe needle (I4) are electrically connected to each other to enable conduction. In this connection state, the test signal output from the tester is applied through the probe needle (14) connected to the input electrode of the IC chip, and the electrical signal generated thereby is applied to the probe needle (14) connected to the output electrode of the IC chip. 14) is output to a tester and compared with the expected signal by the tester to determine the quality and level of the semiconductor chip.

The connection measurement operation as described above is repeated to measure all the IC chips formed on the wafer (2).

After the measurement, the wafer (2) is transported to its original position on the wafer carrier (2) by each transport mechanism. Repeat the measurement operation for each wafer in this way, and place the carrier on the bottom tll.
(Measurement operation is performed for the wafers ■ stored in each wafer carrier ■ placed on the wafer carrier ■69.
When the measurement of wafer (3) is completed, each carrier mounting shelf 0 is lowered.

Using the vacuum tweezers (10), where 0 is a predetermined height position, place the wafer 2 at a height position where it can be carried in and out.Here again.

The measurement of the wafer ■ stored in the wafer carrier ■ placed on the middle carrier shelf 0 is repeated in the same manner as above, and when the measurement of the wafer ■ on the middle carrier shelf 0 is completed, the measurement is repeated again. Lower each carrier mounting shelf ■, set the upper cassette mounting shelf 0 in the predetermined position, and place the wafer
Measurements will be carried out.

As described above, by making it possible to store a large number of wafer carriers in the probe device, the probe device can perform long-term continuous measurements, and can also be used in an unmanned system within a factory.

The present invention is not limited to the above-mentioned embodiments, but any probe device may be used as long as a large number of carriers containing objects to be measured can be installed in the probe device. For example, a stocker (16) having the configuration shown in FIG. 5 may be installed in the probe device. In this stocker (16), a wafer carrier (17) containing wafers is placed at a predetermined position on an L-shaped carrier placement shelf (18) on which, for example, four carriers can be placed. Two supporting parts (19) are provided on both sides of the carrier mounting shelf (18) at a predetermined interval in the vertical direction.

At each support part (19), on both sides of the carrier mounting shelf (18), guide rails (
20) respectively fit into the predetermined positions.

As a result, the carrier mounting m (18) is held parallel to that position. Also on the guide rail (20).

A plurality of carrier mounting shelves (18), for example four, can be installed. Here, the motor (
21) moves the guide rail (20), moves each carrier mounting shelf (18) along the guide rail (20), and places a predetermined carrier mounting shelf (18) at a predetermined position. Install. That is, a predetermined carrier mounting shelf (1
The carrier mounting shelf (18) is installed at a position where a wafer, which is an object to be measured, can be carried in and out from the wafer carrier (17) mounted on the carrier (17). Next, remove the wafer from the wafer carrier (17) using vacuum tweezers (22), etc.
Probe measurement operations similar to those in the above embodiment are repeatedly performed. After completing the measurement of all wafers on this carrier mounting shelf (18), each carrier mounting shelf (18) is moved along the guide rail.

Another carrier mounting shelf (18) is installed at a predetermined position.

By repeating the above operations, it becomes possible to perform continuous automatic measurements over a long period of time with the probe device.

Furthermore, as another example of a stocker installed in the probe device, for example, a plurality of disc-shaped carrier a storage shelves are stacked at predetermined intervals around a holding rod.

The wafer carriers are placed in a circular shape at a predetermined position on each carrier mounting shelf with the loading/unloading surface facing outward. Here, the holding rod may be rotated by a motor or the like so that each wafer carrier can be installed at a predetermined position.

Alternatively, the carrier stored in the stocker may be transported to a predetermined position by a robot arm or the like, and the wafer may be transported from this transported carrier to the measurement section.

Also, it is not necessary to install multiple carriers at the same time, but one by one may be installed at a predetermined position.6 In the above embodiments of each stocker, the drive system is a motor, but a cylinder or the like may also be used as the drive system. Also, by applying a town flow to circulate air within the stocker, it becomes possible to further promote dust-free operation.

Further, the measuring section of the probe device may have any configuration, and may be a marking-only prober that adds marks such as ink to defective IC chips, for example. Since this marking-only prober has a fast processing time, the effect becomes very large when a large number of objects to be measured can be accommodated.

Furthermore, the configuration is such that the wafer carriers are sequentially slid horizontally and installed at a height position where wafers can be carried in and out using vacuum tweezers, and the carrier containing uninspected wafers and the inspected carrier are exchanged at a predetermined position. It doesn't matter if you do it. In this case, the position at which the wafers are loaded and unloaded is constant, and carriers can be replaced one by one, so the stocker can be made smaller.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a diagram of a stocker for explaining one embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of unloading a wafer from a wafer carrier placed on the stocker of FIG. 1. 3 is a diagram of a probe device equipped with the stocker of FIG. 1, FIG. 4 is a diagram of a wafer carrier stored in the stocker of FIG. 1, and FIG. 5 explains another embodiment of FIG. 1. This is a diagram for 1... Probe device 3... Stocker 5... Wafer carrier 6... Carrier mounting shelf 8... Rotating shaft 9... Guide shaft Patent applicant Tokyo Electron Ltd. Figure 1 True 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5 (A)

Claims (3)

[Claims] (1) In a probe device that transports an object to be measured from a carrier provided at a predetermined position to a measurement section for measurement, each carrier provided in a stocker in which a plurality of the carriers are stored is transferred to the predetermined carrier. A probe device characterized by comprising means for installing the probe at a position where the probe is installed. (2) The probe device according to claim 1, wherein the carrier is placed at a predetermined position by moving the placement plate on which the carrier is placed in the vertical direction. (3) The probe device according to claim 1, wherein the carriers are installed one by one at predetermined carrier installation positions.