Self-diagnostic high-density silicon microprobe arrays fabricated by the corner compensated anisotropic etching of (1Â 1Â 0) silicon wafers

In this paper, we present a novel structure and fabrication methods of the self-diagnostic silicon microprobe arrays for applications to the on-line inspection of high-density electronic devices. The microprobe array consists of 1 0 1 probes fabricated by the anisotropic etching of (1 1 0) silicon wafers. Each silicon microprobe of 160 μm wide, 400 μm thick and 11 mm long contains a 20 μm high-electroplated hemispheric gold probe-tip on the Ti/Au signal line as well as a Ti/Au self-diagnostic structure for microprobe breakage detection. We have measured the total contact force and resistance of the 1 0 1 microprobes required to probe ITO electrode. For the contact force greater than of 200 gf, the total resistance of 1 0 1 microprobes converges to 390 Ω. The minimum force of 1.98 gf is required for each microprobe to achieve stable electrical contact. We experimentally demonstrated the electrode-wise probing function and self-diagnostic capability of the fabricated microprobe array for applications to the on-line inspection of the electronics devices having 1 0 1 electrodes per inch.