Location: Engineering IV Site | Back to Equipment >>

Location: CNSI Site | Back to Equipment >>

Probe stations allow a user to position electrical, optical or RF probes on a silicon wafer so that the device can be tested. These tests can be simple, such as continuity or isolation check, or sophisticated, including full functional testing of microcircuits. Tests can be run either before or after the wafer has been sawn into individual dies.

Testing at the wafer level allows a manufacturer to test a device multiple times during the production process, which may provide insight as to which process steps are introducing defects into the finished product. It also enables manufacturers to test the dies prior to packaging, which is important in applications where the packaging costs are high relative to the device costs.