The SmartProbe module, an exciting addition to the yieldWerx suite now offers the ability to interface directly with test equipment and allows the engineer define what and how they want to probe a particular device/wafer. There are two key sub modules, the first provides the Device Definition functionality, allowing the engineer to define a wafer size, die size characteristics and then quickly draw out and edit the wafer map. Allowing the engineer to mark the home die, reference die, remove and add die so that it's an accurate representation of the actual wafer map for the device. The second is the SmartProbe core module itself that interfaces with the tester/ prober and communicates with the test program/interface package and instructs the prober what die to probe next, and then collects data back in real time.

The savings, reduction in test times, ability to monitor and detect anomalies and issues quickly, react to hardware failures and save valuable data and continue probing from where you left off and more – can very quickly mean many thousands of dollars/millions of dollars of savings for large test floors.

The following high level functions are available as part of SmartProbe .

• Ability to probe the back and front of wafer (e.g. LED devices) – in either order and then only probe the die that passed from the first pass
• Probe only predefined die and skip die, to avoid probe card damage e.g. in the case of  bumped die where you don't want to touch down and probe die with bad bumps.
• Stop/pause a wafer being probed at any time – and then start off from where you left off
• Unload the wafer from a tester/ prober and then continue probing it on a different tester/ prober
• Automatically saves data after N number of die (configurable) – preventing data loss in case of hardware failure
• Allows the operator to select and probe any die on the wafer
• Skip Die, Next Die, Previous Die Controls all available to the operator
• Displays yield, die probed/remaining die, time elapsed/remaining – real time
• Automatically stop probing a wafer if yield is < X% after probeing N number of die
• Automatically detect site ( multisite ) yield issues
• Automatically stop probing if N number of failures detected contiguously
• Many other new controls being designed and will be part of the future releases, listed but not limited to:
  • Automatic Yield Recovery – go back and reprobe suspect die or possible recoverable die without unloading the wafer
  • Real time Parametric SPS Control charts
  • Sample Probing – probe only certain portions of the wafer and automatically assign bin values to unprobed die
  • Sample Probing – based on cumulative/stacked wafer map results from last N sets of data from similar lots/wafers
  • PCM/WAT Data Driven Probing – Only probe die/regions of wafer where the PCM/WAT Data is good.