How Wafer Probers Help Produce Quality Electronic Devices 

Wafers are one of the most vital components of integrated circuits (IC) or what is more commonly known as microchips. Also known as a substrate, a wafer is a thin slice of crystalline silicon that acts as the semiconductor base that brings together the different electronic components such as transistors, resistors, and capacitors, on a tiny chip.

This chip is the virtual “brain” of almost all modern electronic appliances, devices, gadgets, and equipment—from your refrigerator and microwave oven to your mobile phone and TV. Microchips are even found in the cars and airplanes you ride on.

Manufacturing Excellence

Thus, imagine how the productivity, convenience, and safety of millions of people rely on the quality of these products, and in turn, the quality of the components that go into them. The evolution of electronic devices also relies heavily on how wafers and electronic components become smaller, more compact and more efficient yet still stable and reliable.

Semiconductor manufacturing companies adopt stringent measures to produce products that are of excellent quality. Wafer testing is an industrial system used to check the integrated circuits present on the substrate before the wafer is sent to die preparation.

Wafer probing

A machine called a wafer prober is used in wafer testing. The wafer is typically placed on a precision equipment for easier positioning during testing. Usually, a high-quality linear stage helps with the precise placement of either the wafer probers or the wafers.

An electrical test is basically performed, where signals from a measuring instrument are transmitted to the wafer through microscopic contacts or probe needles on a card. The XY table moves and places each die on the wafer in contact with the probes. When the signals are returned, the wafer is verified to be functioning and in order.

The process is repeated for each die or integrated circuit contained in the wafer. The prober’s function also extends to retrieving and unloading the wafers from a stack, and thus the machine is equipped with automatic pattern recognition optics so that the wafer is accurately aligned when it comes into contact with the probes.

Die preparation

A die that passes all test patterns are remembered for its position on the wafer. On the other hand, those that do not pass the test patterns are usually marked with a tiny ink mark to indicate that it is faulty and to be discarded. An alternative technique called substrate mapping does not utilize ink marks. All these information are also recorded in a file called a wafermap.

The process of die preparation then comes next. The wafer is mounted on an adhesive film before the wafer is scored into individual dies, each containing an integrated circuit. The adhesive film ensures that the wafer does not break away into pieces as the wafer is diced.

The diced wafer yields the small, rectangular pieces of integrated circuits as we know them to be microchipped after the final step of IC packaging. As you can imagine, the measurements and movements required for this process are also very precise and minute, and thus specialized equipment such as a very thin, diamond-tipped circular saw is used to cut the wafer into dies.

Innovations in electronics

Wafer probes are one of the most important equipment and machines in the semiconductor manufacturing process, and thus they rely on equally sophisticated, high-tech and innovative motion components such as high-precision linear tables in order to perform their function well.

Especially with the dawn of the Internet of Things (IoT) or the interconnectedness of almost any electronic device today, the role of microchips is astounding, and as such production of these items have to be maintained at a certain level of quality, or even improved further with the help of more advanced manufacturing and testing technologies.