Electricity: measuring and testing – Fault detecting in electric circuits and of electric components – Of individual circuit component or element
Reexamination Certificate
2002-03-05
2004-05-11
Pert, Evan (Department: 2829)
Electricity: measuring and testing
Fault detecting in electric circuits and of electric components
Of individual circuit component or element
Reexamination Certificate
active
06734694
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method and apparatus for automatically testing various properties of a semiconductor device that has a cable.
2. Description of the Related Art
There has been known, as shown in
FIG. 13
, such a semiconductor device
100
that has a cable connected with it.
The device
100
consists of a device body
104
connected with one end of a cable
102
, and a connector
106
connected with the other end of the cable.
The device body
104
, receiving a signal through the connector
106
and the cable
102
, converts or amplifies the signal and outputs a signal from its terminals
104
A.
The device body
104
sometimes receives signals through the terminals
104
A and outputs the processed signals from the connector
106
. The cable
102
is generally an optical fiber or a conductive wire, and the body
104
has a semiconductor circuit (not shown) for processing the signals.
For inspecting the various properties of the packaged device with a cable, such a method will be applied to as in a general semiconductor device (without a cable) that the terminals
104
A of the body
104
are brought into contact with an inspection probe.
FIG. 13
illustrates a testing configuration in which a board-type probe
108
is in contact with the terminals
104
A from under the device
100
.
FIG. 14
illustrates a testing configuration in which a pin-type probe
110
is in contact with the terminals
104
A from over the device
100
.
In both cases, input signals are applied from a port
112
A of a tester
112
to the device body
104
through the connector
106
and the cable
102
, and output signals are sent to a port
112
B of the tester
112
through the probe
108
or
110
contacting with the terminals
104
A, whereby the tester
112
inspects the properties of the device
100
, comparing the input signals with the output ones.
It is also possible to test the device in reversal direction by changing the port
112
A with the port
112
B.
In order to achieve precise inspection, it is necessary for the device terminals to be in contact with the probe precisely. However, because of fine pitch of the terminals, manual setting between the terminals and the probe sometimes produces erroneous contact, causing incorrect test result.
Therefore, there exists a need to test the semiconductor device automatically.
In order to automate the testing of semiconductor devices, it is required to transport the devices automatically.
Since the semiconductor device has a flexible cable, irregular deformation of the cable easily occurs during transportation, which gives excess stress to the connection point between the device body and the cable. This affects the test result of the device, or sometimes damages the device. Therefore, it has been difficult to automate the transportation and inspection of the semiconductor device connected with a cable.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a method and apparatus for automatically testing a semiconductor device with a cable in high precision.
In order to achieve the object mentioned above, the invention provides for an automatic semiconductor device testing apparatus. The device has a cable, a device body connected with one end of the cable, and a connector connected with the other end of the cable. In an apparatus aspect of the invention, the invention includes a tray for holding the device so that the connector can couple to a mating connector directly or indirectly with the device held in the tray; a tray storage capable of storing a plurality of piled trays, having a tray selecting mechanism for supporting a selected tray separated from the adjacent trays, and an ejector for ejecting the tray supported on the selecting mechanism; a transport mechanism for transporting the tray ejected from the tray storage sequentially to an inspection area with the device held in the tray; an inspection connector for automatically coupling to the connector held in the tray at the inspection area; a probe disposed at the inspection area for applying or receiving signals to or from device terminals of the device body, being in contact with or close to each other; an inspection robot for picking up the device body held in the tray and transporting it to the probe to get contact with or close to; a controller to control the inspection robot; and a tester for testing the semiconductor device by applying input signals to one side of the inspection connector or the probe and receiving output signals from the other side.
In this aspect, the tray holds the cable near the device body so that the cable can be set along a connecting direction of the device body, and guided in the connecting direction when the device body is removed from or restored into the tray.
Preferably, the apparatus may further include a pressing mechanism for pressing the terminals on the probe in a state that the device body is in contact with or close to the probe.
In a particular arrangement, the apparatus further includes a device body imaging device for imaging the posture of the device body retained on the inspection robot. The controller has a reference posture storing section for storing a reference retained posture, and a posture error calculating section for calculating an error between the reference posture and the retained posture imaged by the device body imaging device, and controls the inspection robot to transport the device body onto the probe together with correction of the calculated error.
In another aspect of the invention, the apparatus has a tray transfer device for holding and transferring the tray. The controller controls both of the tray transfer device and the inspection robot in synchronism with each other, so that the device body can be transported from the imaged position by the imaging device to the probe with the relative position between the device body and the cable maintained.
Preferably, the tray transfer device may be a rotation table to hold and rotatably transfer the tray, and the device body imaging device and the probe are arranged along an arced locus concentric with the table. The controller controls the inspection robot so that the device body can rotatably move along the arced locus from the imaging device to the probe.
Further, the rotation table can hold a plurality of trays.
In yet another aspect of the invention, the apparatus may include a probe imaging device for detecting a probe set position. The controller has a reference position storing section for storing a reference set position of the probe, and a position error calculating section for calculating an error between the reference set position and the probe set position detected by the probe imaging device, and controls the inspection robot so as to transport the device body onto the probe with the set position error corrected.
Particularly, the probe imaging device can detect the position of the device terminals brought into contact with or close to the probe. The controller has a displacement calculating section for calculating the displacement between the probe and the terminals based on the probe set position and the position of the terminals, and an allowable value storing section for storing a given allowable displacement value. The controller controls the inspection robot so that the device body can get into contact with or close to the probe with the displacement corrected if the calculated displacement is over the allowable value.
In still another aspect, the apparatus is provided with a front-end system and a front-end robot. The system executes a heat-retaining process for keeping the device body in a given temperature, a dust removing process for removing foreign substance from the device body, and an electrostatic discharge process for discharging static electricity from the device body. The front-end robot picks up the device body held on the tray, and transfers it to the front-end system.
In a particular embodiment, the inspection robot can also serve as the front-end robot.
In furthe
Kinoshita Kiyoshi
Miyasako Masami
Nakamura Masao
Tauchi Tsukasa
Yamamoto Yuzi
Juki Corporation
Merchant & Gould P.C.
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