A manufacturing method of contact probes for a testing head comprises the steps of: providing a substrate made of a conductive material; and defining at least one contact probe by laser cutting the substrate. The method further includes at least one post-processing fine definition step of at least one end portion of the contact probe, that follows the step of defining the contact probe by laser cutting, the end portion being a portion including a contact tip or a contact head of the contact probe. The fine definition step does not involve a laser processing and includes geometrically defining the end portion of the contact probe with at least a substantially micrometric precision.

It is described a contact probe for a testing head for a testing apparatus of electronic devices, the probe comprising a probe body extended in a longitudinal direction between respective end portions adapted to contact respective contact pads, the second end being a contact tip adapted to abut onto a contact pad of the device under test, the body of each contact probe having a length of less than 5000 m, and including at least one pass-through opening extending along its longitudinal dimension. Conveniently, the at least one pass-through opening is filled by a filling material, in order to define at least one first and one second lateral portions in the body, being parallel and joined to each other by a connecting central portion realized by the filling material at the pass-through opening, the connecting central portion made of the filling material acting as a strengthening element.

Embodiments are directed to microscale and millimeter scale multi-layer structures (e.g., probe structures for making contact between two electronic components for example in semiconductor wafer, chip, and electronic component test applications). One or more layers of the structures include shell and core regions formed of different materials wherein the core regions are offset from a symmetric, longitudinally extending position.

An embodiment of the present application provides a contact probe, which comprises a tubular structure, an engagement part, a pushing part and an elastic member. The elastic member is received within the tubular structure; the engagement part is arranged within the tubular structure; the pushing part is arranged within the tubular structure and is arranged at the inner wall of the tubular structure opposite to the engagement part; a part of the elastic member is arranged in the tubular structure, and a side surface at a first end of the elastic member is engaged with the engagement part, and the pushing part presses a side surface of the elastic member facing the pushing part, and both the engagement part and the pushing part press the elastic member to make the elastic member in a bent state, and make a part of the elastic member in the tubular structure to abut closely against the inner wall of the tubular structure. In the present embodiment, when using the contact probe, the elastic member can always bend in one direction and contact with a same part of the inner wall of the tubular structure, which can improve the stability of the structures within the contact probe, so as to improve the stability of electrical testing.

Embodiments are directed to the formation micro-scale or millimeter scale structures or methods of making such structures wherein the structures are formed from at least one sheet structural material and may include additional sheet structural materials or deposited structural materials wherein all or a portion of the patterning of the structural materials occurs via laser cutting. In some embodiments, selective deposition is used to provide a portion of the patterning. In some embodiments the structural material or structural materials are bounded from below by a sacrificial bridging material (e.g. a metal) and possibly from above by a sacrificial capping material (e.g. a metal).

Vertical probes, formed of at least one layer that longitudinally includes a first and a second end and a central portion, with the central portion including at least three compliant arms wherein each of the two outer arms include a material having a yield strength greater than a first amount and the at least one intermediate arm is formed of a material having a yield strength less than the first yield strength amount wherein a yield strength of the material of the intermediate arm has a ratio to that of an outer arm of less than 1, more preferably less than 0.8, even more preferably less than 0.6, and most preferably less than 0.4.

The terminals of a device under test (DUT) are temporarily electrically connected to corresponding contact pads on a load board by a series of electrically conductive pin pairs. The pin pairs are held in place by an interposer membrane with a top facing the device under test, a bottom facing the load board, and a vertically resilient, non-conductive member between the top and bottom contact plates. Each pin pair includes a top and bottom pin, which extend beyond the top and bottom contact plates, respectively, toward the device under test and the load board, respectively. The bottom pins has a lower contact surface which includes an arcuate portion or ridge which increases contact pressure and ablates oxides by the rocking action of ridge when the DUT in inserted.

Probes are connected to the space transformer via multiple carrier plates. Electrical contacts from the probes to the space transformer are by way of spring tail features on the probes that connect to the space transformer and not to the carrier plates. In other words, the carrier plates are purely mechanical in function. This configuration can significantly reduce probe array fabrication time relative to sequential placement of individual probes on the space transformer. Multiple probe carrier plates can be populated with probes in parallel, and the final sequential assembly of carrier plates onto the space transformer has a greatly reduced operation count. Deviations of the space transformer from flatness can be compensated for.

Electrically conductive columns of intertwined carbon nanotubes embedded in a mass of material flexible, resilient electrically insulating material can be used as electrically conductive contact probes. The columns can extend between opposing sides of the mass of material. Terminals of a wiring substrate can extend into the columns and be electrically connected to an electrical interface to a tester that controls testing of a device under test. A pair of physically interlocked structures can coupling the mass of material to the wiring substrate. The pair can include a receptacle and a protrusion.

Provided is a conical nano-carbon material functionalized needle tip, formed by assembling a nano-carbon material with a material of a needle tip by means of a covalent bond; and the material of the needle tip is a metal selected from one or more of tungsten, iron, cobalt, nickel and titanium. Further provided is a method for preparing the conical nano-carbon material functionalized needle tip. The conical nano-material functionalized needle tip has an outstanding interface formed by metal-carbide covalent bonds, and the orientation of the conical nano-material is matched with the axial direction of the metal needle tip (illustrated in FIG. 6). The proposed preparation method affords a robust interface and avoids the potential pollution to the nano-material caused during the deposition of fixing materials, such as carbon or platinum or the like, in other preparation methods.