Increase Wafer Yield and Extend Probe Card Life

Probe Clean | Probe Polish | Probe Scrub | Probe Lap | Probe Form

PROBE CLEAN™
Probe Clean™ is a unique probe card cleaning material that is non-conductive, non-corrosive and has an effective operating temperature range of -50^o to 200^oC.  This material removes and traps the loose debris that accumulates on the probe tips and shaft.  Probe Clean™ is a highly cross-linked polymer that can be mounted on various substrates to offer maximum flexibility when cleaning on-line or for off-line tools.

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   Prober Installation Procedures
  

PROBE POLISH™
Probe Polish™ is a polymeric material containing abrasive particles uniformly and spatially distributed.  This material combines the attractive forces of Probe Clean™ with the added benefit of removing embedded contaminants.  Probe Polish™ lightly polishes the probe tip and shaft with only slight abrasion to the probe.

Probe Polish™ is ideal for cleaning cantilever type cards with rounded, radius, and flat tip probes.  Vertical and area array style cards such as Cobra style with pointed, flat and wedge probes particularly benefit from using this material.  Probe Polish™ has the same temperature range as Probe Clean™ and the same flexibility of substrates for on-line and off-line probe card cleaning applications.
 

   Technical Data
   Prober Installation Procedures

PROBE SCRUB™
Probe Scrub™ is a multilayer probe card cleaning medium constructed from a highly cross-linked polymeric material (Probe Clean™) applied over an abrasive lapping film.  Probe Scrub™ was initially developed to contain lead-tin solder particulates that accumulate on probe tips during bump probing.  Once air-borne, these contaminants can cause a health hazard which, when using Probe Scrub™, is controlled.  For wafer test applications from low temperature to +125^oC, Probe Lap™ precision lapping film is used in the material stack of Probe Scrub™ HT to provide consistent performance.  Probe Scrub™  is also available with a 3M™ Imperial® lapping film ("pink"); however, this material construction is limited to low temperature and ambient wafer sort applications.

Probe Scrub™ can also be used to effectively remove "weld nuggets" that form on the contact surface of cantilevered probes.  Insertion into the material allows for a slightly scrubbing action on the abrasive substrate thereby removing embedded and bonded debris from the tip surface.  As the probe tip is removed from the material, the polymer layer traps the debris from the tip length.  Probe Scrub™ can be mounted on various substrates, wafers, and abrasion plates as a direct replacement for many on-line lapping film applications.
 

   Technical Data
   Prober Installation Procedures

PROBE LAP™
Probe Lap™ is a precision lapping film developed specifically for probe card cleaning during room temperature and “hot chuck” wafer level test applications up to +125^oC.  Probe Lap™ is applicable for all probe needle materials (i.e., tungsten, rhenium tungsten, beryllium copper, and palladium–alloy) and can be used as a direct replacement for the “pink” and/or "yellow-green" lapping films used by many sort floors to abrasively clean probe tips .  A proprietary manufacturing process is used to fabricate Probe Lap™ with 1 or 3-micron grit particle sizes (aluminum oxide or silicon carbide) and attain a uniform surface morphology that provides consistent material removal as well as reduced debris generation.
 

   Technical Data
   Prober Installation Procedures

PROBE FORM™
Probe Form™ was developed for cantilevered probe technologies to provide a cost effective method of uniformly “reforming” a flat probe tip into a smooth, radius shape.  Probe Form™ shapes the probe contact surface area of new and worn flat probe tips to attain smooth, radius tips that substantially improve C_RES stability and wafer yield.  Probe Form™ uses a highly cross-linked, non-corrosive polymer that has an operating temperature range of -50^oC to +200^oC.  A Probe Form™ shaping operation can be easily incorporated into a probe card build process to “form” radius tips or into a probe card maintenance cycle to restore worn or deformed probe tips.  Application of online non-destructive cleaning, such as Probe Polish™, will effectively maintain the tip shape. 
 

   Technical Data