Prediction of signal transfer characteristics of probe card using electro-magnetic solvers

Probe card is an interface to test the operation of fabricated semiconductor wafer. It connects the test/measurement device to semiconductor wafer by redistributing thousands of signal routes in an appropriate way. In this paper, we measure and simulate the high-frequency transfer characteristics of a MEMs type probe card. By comparison of the simulated and measured data, it is confirmed that electro-magnetic solvers (HFSS, SIwave, and Nexxim for integration) are reliable to predict the high frequency signal transfer characteristics of the complicated MEMs probe card. Also, it was found that the major signal attenuation occurred at the tip and PCB in the probe card, especially in high-frequency range.