JPH0250449A - Wafer testing system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To facilitate automatic setting of the testing system for respective types of wafers and improve the efficiency of the wafer testing by realizing common usage of a performance board. CONSTITUTION:A scramble board 4 which facilitates arbitrary scramble of testing signals for a probe card 7 by changing wiring of jumper wires is provided between a performance board 3 and the probe card 7. Therefore, a number of types of wafers can be successively tested by changing the scramble boards on which the jumper wirings corresponding to the respective types of the wafers to be measured while a testing head and the performance board are fixed. With this constitution, automatic setting of the testing system for the respective types of the wafers can be realized and the efficiency of the wafer testing can be improved.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a technique that is effective when applied to probe inspection of semiconductor wafers carried out in the manufacturing process of semiconductor devices.

[Conventional technology]

An example of this type of technology is described in "Electronic Materials Special Edition, Guidebook for VLSI Manufacturing and Testing Equipment", published by Kogyo Chosenkai Co., Ltd., November 15, 1980, P1.
There are 95 to P198.

In the above literature, various basic functions of a wafer prober are explained.

To briefly explain the conventional wafer bumper structure described in the above literature, the performance board fixed to the inspection head and the probe card adapter fixed to the probe card are aligned and their corresponding electrodes are in contact with each other. A predetermined test signal is sent to a semiconductor wafer, which is a sample, through a probe needle on the probe card side to test the operating state.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

However, in the above technology, since the probe card used for each type of semiconductor wafer is changed, the performance board fixed to the above inspection head must also be replaced correspondingly, and the wafer inspection This was a factor that hindered efficiency.

The present invention has been made with attention to the above-mentioned problems, and its purpose is to provide a technology that can automatically set the system for each product type and improve the efficiency of wafer inspection by realizing the sharing of performance boards. It's about doing.

The above and other objects and novel features of the present invention will become apparent from the detailed description of the present specification and the accompanying drawings.

[Means to solve the problem]

A brief overview of typical inventions disclosed in this application is as follows.

That is, the structure is such that a scramble board, which can optionally scramble test signals for the probe card by changing the wiring of jumper wires, is interposed in a removable manner between the performance board and the probe card.

[Effect]

According to the above means, by replacing the scramble board with jumper wiring corresponding to the wafer type,
With the inspection head and performance board fixed, it is possible to sequentially inspect a wide variety of wafers.

〔Example〕

FIGS. 1(a) and 3) are schematic cross-sectional views showing a wafer inspection system according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing a scramble board of this embodiment, and FIG. 3 is a structure of a probe card adapter. FIG.

The wafer inspection system 1 in this embodiment is shown in FIG.
) and (b), it is composed of an inspection head 2, a performance board 3, a scramble board 4, a blow μ 6 equipped with a probe card adapter 5, and a probe card 7.

Inside the inspection head 2, a signal generating means, a signal receiving means, an evaluation means, etc. (not shown) are installed, and the operation of the wafer 8 as a sample can be evaluated.

As shown in the figure, a performance board 3 is fixed to the lower surface of the inspection head 2 by fixing means such as screws 10. A plurality of electrode pins 3a protrude from the performance board 3 and are connected to the inside of the inspection radar 2 for inputting and outputting the above-mentioned inspection signals.

Scramble board 4 is the performance board 3 mentioned above.
It has the structure shown in FIG. 2. That is, the scramble board 4 has a board body 4a composed of a multilayer printed wiring board of about four layers, and a circular inspection window 4b is provided on the main surface of the board body 4a. A plurality of fixed electrodes 11 are arranged along the periphery of the window 4b. The fixed electrode 11 is
Each is provided at a position corresponding to the electrode pin 3a protruding from the performance board 3 described above,
jumper wire 13 with one end fixed to the fixed electrode 11;
are connected by soldering. The jumper wire 13
The other ends are connected to selection electrodes 12 provided on the outer periphery of the fixed electrode 11, respectively.

The selection electrodes 12 are electrically connected to electrode pins 4c provided on the other surface of the board body 4a.

Therefore, in the scramble board 4 of this embodiment, arbitrary scrambling of the signal lines can be realized by selectively connecting the jumper wire 13 to the selection electrode 12 from the fixed electrode 11.

Next, the probe card adapter 5 that is contacted by the electrode pins 4c protruding from the scramble board 4 will be explained with reference to FIG.

The probe card adapter 5 is housed and fixed in a socket hole 6a of a plate-shaped blow μ6.

The probe card adapter 5 includes a pair of ring-shaped contact boards 14a and 14b supported by a column 19.
The main surface of the contact board 14a located above in the figure has a plurality of electrodes 14C corresponding to the electrode pins 4C of the scramble board 4. The contact board 14b located below also has the same structure as above, and both contact boards are connected to each other by conductive means such as lead wires 15.

A ring-shaped probe card 7 is arranged below the contact board 14b, and the contact board 14b has electrode pads 7a formed on its main surface.
Electrical continuity is achieved by the contact between the two. The electrode pad 7a is electrically connected to a probe needle 16 attached to the lower surface of the probe card 7 through a through hole (not shown) formed through the front and back surfaces of the probe card 7. The tips of the probe needles 16 are arranged so as to come into contact with the pads 17a of the pellets 17 formed on the wafer 8, thereby transmitting and receiving signals from the above-mentioned inspection head 2 to the pellets 17. It is possible.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be explained.

With the inspection head 2 and the blow μ6 open, the scramble board 4 is moved by a conveying means 18 such as a robot arm.
is placed between the performance board 3 and the contact board 14a), the inspection head 2 is closed to the blow μ6, and the scramble board 4 is placed between the performance board 3 and the contact board 14a).
4a (FIG. 1(b)). In this state, the electrode pins and electrodes of each board are in contact with each other, making it possible to transmit and receive signals from the inspection radar 2 to the probe needle 16.

In this state, the inspection stage 20 on which the wafer 8 is mounted is raised, and when the pad 17a of a predetermined pellet 17 on the wafer 8 comes into contact with the tip of the probe needle 16, an inspection signal is sent from the RAD 2 to the above inspection. is output to the pellet 17 through the probe needle 16. The pellet 17 executes a predetermined operation upon application of the test signal, and outputs the execution result back to the test head 2 via the probe needle 16 as an output signal. The inspection head 2 determines whether the operating state of the pellet 17 is good or bad based on the output signal from the pellet 17.

After the inspection on one unit of pellet 17 is completed in this way, the inspection stage 20 is controlled to move in the XY and Z directions, and the above inspection is repeated on all the pellets 17 on the wafer 8.

When the inspection of one wafer 8 is completed as described above, the wafer 8 that has been inspected is accommodated in the cartridge by a transfer means (not shown), and a new wafer 8 to be inspected is placed on the inspection stage 20. be done.

Here, when repeating the above inspection on the same type of wafer 8, the scramble board 4 may be fixed and maintained with the inspection rad 2 and the blow μ 6 in a closed state, When wafers 8 are sequentially inspected, the type of wafers 8 to be inspected may be changed frequently.

In such cases, it is often not possible to simply replace the probe card 7. That is, the arrangement of the pads 17a on the pellet 17 and the function of each pad 17a vary greatly depending on the product. In such a case, in the conventional technology, it was necessary to also replace the performance board 3, which is fixed to the inspection RAD 2 with screws 1O, etc., as described above, but in this embodiment, the scramble board 4, which is easy to replace, is also required. This can be resolved by simply changing the .

That is, in the scramble board 4 shown in FIG. 2, a large number of scramble boards 4 with different wiring states of the jumper wires 13 corresponding to the number of types of wafers 8 are prepared in advance, and when changing the type of wafers 8, This scramble board 4
By replacing the wafers 8 using a transporter 18 such as a robot arm, it is possible to change the type of wafer 8 in an extremely short time.

In particular, in this embodiment, the structures of the inspection pad 2 and the blow μ 6 may remain the same as the conventional devices, so that a highly versatile wafer inspection system 1 can be provided at extremely low cost.

Although the invention made by the present inventor has been specifically explained above based on Examples, it goes without saying that the present invention is not limited to the above Examples and can be modified in various ways without departing from the gist thereof. Nor. For example, the scramble board 4 has a fixed electrode 11 and a selection electrode 1 on its main surface.
2 and the electrode pin 4C is provided upright on the back side, but the back side may also have a planar electrode structure as long as the contact with the contact board 14a is good.

〔Effect of the invention〕

A brief explanation of the effects obtained by typical inventions disclosed in this application is as follows.

That is, by replacing the scramble board with jumper wiring that corresponds to the type of wafer, it is possible to sequentially test various types of wafers while the inspection head and performance board remain fixed.

Therefore, it is possible to share the performance board when inspecting wafers of various types, and automatic setting of the system for each type of wafer and efficiency of wafer inspection are realized.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

1(a) and 2) are schematic cross-sectional views showing a wafer inspection system which is an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing a scramble board of the above embodiment, and FIG. 3 is a probe in the embodiment. FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing the structure of a card adapter. 1... Wafer inspection system, 2... Inspection head, 3
...Performance board, 3a...Electrode pin, 4
... Scramble board, 4a ... Board body, 4
b...Inspection window, 4c...Electrode pin, 5...Probe card adapter, 6...Blow μ, 6a...Socket hole, 7...Probe card, 7a...
・ ・Electrode pad, 8... Wafer 10... Screw,
11... Fixed electrode, 12... Selection electrode, 13...
Jumper 1.14a, 14b...contact board,
14c... Electrode, 15... Lead wire, 16... Probe needle, 17... Pellet, 17a... Pad,
18...Transportation means, 19...Strut, 20...Inspection stage. Figure 1 (Q) 8:f)5ノ＼ Figure (b) Figure

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A wafer inspection system for inspecting operating signals on semiconductor wafers, comprising: an inspection head that generates an inspection signal; a performance board fixed to the inspection head and transmitting the inspection signal; and a performance board that is fixed to the inspection head and transmits the inspection signal. A wafer inspection system is provided with a scramble board which is detachably attached to the board and allows arbitrary scrambling of inspection signals for a probe card by changing the wiring of jumper wires. 2. The scramble board includes a group of fixed electrodes that are in contact with electrode pins protruding from the performance board on the main surface of the board, and a selection electrode that is selectively electrically connected to the fixed electrodes through a jumper wire, 2. The wafer inspection system according to claim 1, wherein the selection electrodes are electrically connected to electrodes on the other surface of the board that are in contact with electrodes of the probe card.