Geometric design for ultra-long needle probe card for digital light processing wafer testing

The probe card with ultra-long probing needles is specifically designed for probe testing of wafers that feature protruding housing for digital micromirror devices (DMD) for digital light processing (DLP) applications. Compared with a conventional short probing needle, an ultra-long probing needle leaves a smaller scrub mark on the pad during probe testing but it suffers the risk from buckling. In this work, three-dimensional finite element models were developed and validated by experiments for single conventional and ultra-long probing needles to analyze their mechanical responses during wafer-level probe testing. Following the Taguchi method, we conducted separate optimal geometric designs for an ultra-long probing needle with respect to the minimized scrub length and minimized buckling potential. It was found that a long beam length of the ultra-long probing needle is preferred in reducing both scrub length and buckling potential. A compromised design that considers minimizing scrub length and buckling potential conjointly but with different weightings was presented.