Latest Test and Measurement News

Multitest expands Contactor Portfolio for WLP / WLCSP Testing

13 January 2016 - Multitest’s new Mercury 030 probe meets the increasing demand for cost-efficient high performance WLP / WLCSP contacting solutions. The Mercury 030 is designed to address the electrical requirements of today's test challenges, without sacrificing mechanical performance in an automated test environment. The Mercury 030 is a WLCSP fine pitch probe made using a Multitest proprietary process that produces a long life, high strength probe with gold plating. For high reliability, stability, and very low contact resistance contacting, the Mercury 030 has two flat surfaces moving in surface-to-surface contact.

While electrical and cost benefits are turning WLP and WLCSP into the “go-to” packaging of choice, traditional wafer probe technology can prevent customers from testing the device in a WLP package to published specification. The low RLC parasitics of the Mercury 030 make it a preferred contacting solution for customers who want to fully test wafer level packaged devices in the DC, functional, and AC parametric domains.

The Mercury 030 probe geometry and components provide high bandpass (8 GHz @-1 dB insertion loss) and low resistance (160 mΩ). The Mercury 030 ensures required probing coplanarity matching the vertical heights of the customers’ WLCSP balls and/or lands. With a 0.33 mm window of compliance and low insertion force, the Mercury 030 is well qualified for both singulated and multisite WLP and WLCSP contacting and/or probing.

During customer field tests, the Mercury 030 demonstrated long run times between cleaning with an average probe replacement life of 300K -500K device contacts. Particularly valued in a high volume environment, the Mercury 030 is easy to setup and to maintain.

Bert Brost, Product Manager at Xcerra’s Interface Product Group explains: “Although the Mercury 030 can cost less than traditional probe technology, its ease of use, ease of maintenance, and high performance attributes directly address customer test requirements. With this new contacting solution we are supporting our customers’ efforts to reduce costs and improve throughput. The Mercury 030 is the result of Multitest spring probe development experience, integrating proven technology that is of greater value to the customer than products offered by the competition.”

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