Wafer Probe Tip Selection

Probe Tips or Probe Needles come in a variety of materials, lengths, shapes and tip diameter or radii (Everbeing are stated in tip diameter). They provide direct electrical contact to the circuit under test. Probe tips are specified to suit each individual application. Considerations should be made regarding the material to be probed, temperature, bond pad size and bond pad thickness.

Probe Tips with a larger radius will provide a lower impedance contact but have a larger footprint, although larger radius tips may be affected by any oxide contaminant layer on the contact pad. In this case, smaller radius tips will be sharper and able to pierce through to the contact material, whether this is Gold, Aluminium, Nickel or Copper. This compromise needs to be considered and chosen to suit the contact area available.

Probe Tip Dimensions

General purpose tungsten probe tips, 32mm long, suitable for piercing oxide layers. Low cost, low contact resistance, durable.

• Tungsten Material
• Sizes 0.35 μm to 200 μm
• 0.51mm (20mil) shank diameter
• 32 mm length
• Straight, single bend and double bend available.

Probe Tip Material

Solid Tungsten
(0.3µm – 500µm)
General purpose tungsten probe tips, 32mm long, suitable for piercing oxide layers.

Low cost, low contact resistance, durable.

Solid Tungsten – Gold Plated
(5.0µm – 500µm)
For probing gold contacts and pads – reduced contact resistance / impedance.

Nickel Shank – Tungsten Tipped (Cats Whisker Probes)
(0.4µm – 1.0µm)
Sub µm probe for small feature probing – can easily to be bent or cut to length.

Tungsten Carbide Shank – Tungsten Carbide Tip
Suitable for high temperature operation.

Beryllium Copper Shank – Beryllium Copper Tip
(5.0µm – 200µm)
Reduced contact resistance / impedance – suitable for probing soft materials, reduced pad damage.

DC / RF Multi Contact Wedge (MCW)

For complex test set-ups where lots of pads need to be contacted at the same time we can offer a Multi Contact Wedge (MCW).

GGB Picoprobe offer a range of DC and RF wedge probes that allow multiple probes to be landed on a device made to your own design, similar to how probe card works, to speed up complex test set-ups.

We can offer inline or with an offset and equal spacing or spaced to your requirements. Please ask for more information on these.

Everbeing Probe Tip Range

We offer a range of probe tips in solid tungsten, beryllium copper (BeCu) or gold-plated tungsten. Each probe tip is 32mm long and 0.5mm in diameter. We state the size as tip diameter supplied in boxes of 10, straight or bent.

Explore the full range and specifications click here.

To speak with one of our Sales & Applications Engineers please call 01582 764334.

Lambda Photometrics is the leading UK Distributor of Characterisation, Measurement and Analysis solutions with particular expertise in Instrumentation, Laser & Light based products, Optics, Electro-optic Testing, Spectroscopy, Machine Vision, Optical Metrology, Fibre Optics, Microscopy and Anti-vibration tables & custom solutions.