October 25, 2007 — FormFactor Inc. has announced a new family of advanced wafer probe cards designed to address the rising cost and technology challenges associated with testing wire bond logic and system-on-chip (SoC) devices.

The TrueScale product family leverages FormFactor’s MEMS-enabled MicroSpring contact technology to provide increased throughput and uptime that wire bond logic and SoC manufacturers need to lower their test cost per die and support their technology roadmaps for tighter pad pitches, the company announced in a news release.

Limitations with conventional cantilever probing solutions allow for only a few devices to be tested in parallel today. At higher levels of parallelism, these probing solutions require frequent maintenance — in many cases after only a few touchdowns — to ensure the contacts are aligned properly with the test pads on the wafer.

In contrast, the company said, FormFactor’s TrueScale probe cards leverage the company’s proprietary MicroSpring contact design to allow robust contact performance, significantly higher pin counts, and fewer touchdowns per wafer than alternative technologies — increasing test throughput and enabling greater test cost reductions.