Complex probe card for testing a semiconductor wafer

Claim 1

A probe card for testing semiconductor wafers, comprising: at least upper and lower printed circuit plates arranged in a stack, said printed circuit plates having inner central portions with apertures at their respective centers and also having outer peripheries with a plurality of bores therethrough, said apertures being increasingly larger from the upper to the lower printed circuit plates so as to allow each central portion of said printed circuit plates to be exposed through said apertures, probe needles arranged in radial arrays around said apertures, each of said radial arrays having multiple layers of probe needles, said probe needles having tapered terminal tips aligned on a plane in parallel with but spaced from said printed circuit plates and also having opposite uniformly thick terminal ends, each of a plurality of terminal rods passing through one of the plurality of bores in the outer peripheries of the printed circuit plates, and a plurality of conductors spaced apart from each other and connecting each one of the terminal ends of the probe needles to a different one of the plurality of terminal rods, said plurality of conductors being aligned on parallel planes alternating with said printed circuit plates, thereby enabling each of said terminal tips of said probe needles to be externally viewed from above through each of said apertures in the central portions of the printed circuit plates.