Design and fabrication of microelectromechanical systems probe card with vertical trench guide for fine pitch probing

In this study, we developed a new microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) probe card with a vertically guided and electroplated cantilever in order to overcome pitch limitation, which has a compliant structure and is capable of a 35 μm pad pitch, with through-wafer interconnections for IC testing. We also investigated the reliability of the MEMS probe card using tribology and scaling of the MEMS probe card for fine pitch probing. The measured contact resistance was less than 0.5Ω at 1.5 gf applied force and the leakage current was approximately 10 pA between one tip and an adjacent tip. In addition, the planarity of tips and the alignment of x- and y-axes were satisfied with a conventional needle probe card performance. Therefore, this probe card is suitable for wafer-level burn-in testing and function testing of memory and RF devices.