What is the function of a high-frequency needle?
Release date:
2022-01-06
High-frequency pin contacts are made of beryllium copper. High-frequency pins play a critical role at nearly every stage of an RF product’s lifecycle—ranging from technology development and model parameter extraction to design verification and debugging, as well as small‑batch production testing and full‑scale production testing.
In the current phase of rapid development, a wide array of high‑tech products is constantly emerging. In the manufacturing of certain electronic devices, probes are frequently employed. Within the industry, these probes are also referred to as test probes, sleeves, or spring pins. Probes serve as the contact medium for electrical testing and constitute an essential component of electronic hardware. Among them is the high‑frequency probe, which is used to measure high‑frequency and radio‑frequency signals in mobile phones, wireless network cards, and routers. Primarily utilized as a bridge, it features low insertion loss, a low standing wave ratio, and stable performance.
High‑frequency probe contacts are made of beryllium copper. High‑frequency probes play a critical role at nearly every stage of an RF product’s lifecycle—ranging from technology development and model parameter extraction to design verification and debugging, as well as small‑batch production testing and full‑scale manufacturing validation. By employing high‑frequency probes, it is possible to measure the true electrical characteristics of high‑frequency components at the chip level. This helps shorten R&D cycles and significantly reduce the cost of developing new products.
After years of development, high‑frequency probe technology has made tremendous strides, evolving from low‑frequency measurements to commercially viable solutions that support a wide range of applications: impedance‑matching, multi‑port, differential, and mixed‑signal measurement systems operating at 110 GHz in high‑temperature environments; continuous‑wave power measurements up to 60 W; and terahertz‑band applications extending as high as 750 GHz. The figure illustrates the capabilities of these high‑frequency probes.
A high‑frequency probe technique once in use differed significantly from today’s tools. In early probes, a very short, gradually converging 50‑Ω microstrip line was employed to make contact through small vias in the probe substrate, reaching the device‑under‑test (DUT)’s pressure points (pads). At that time, the main technical challenge was achieving repeatable measurements above 4 GHz. Although the relatively large series inductance of the contact leads could be mitigated through calibration, the radiation impedance varied substantially when the chuck holding the circular die was moved. The tip design for high‑frequency measurements differs from that used for DC and low‑frequency measurements; in a 50‑Ω environment, the tip must be positioned as close as possible to the DUT’s voltage node.
Thereafter, engineers achieved breakthroughs in detection technology, establishing the fundamental requirements and operating principles of high-frequency probes:
A. The probe’s 50-ohm planar transmission line should make direct contact with the DUT’s pressure point, without contacting the lead wires. For microstrip lines and subsequent coplanar probe designs, probe contact is achieved via a small metal ball, which must be sufficiently large to ensure reliable and repeatable contact.
B. To simultaneously access both the signal‑reference node and the ground reference node of the DUT, the probe must be tilted. This process is referred to as “probe planarization.”
C. The contact repeatability of probes is significantly better than that of coaxial connectors. It is highly convenient to develop standard and specialized calibration methods for probes and chips.
D. High-repeatability contacts can precisely calibrate the probe and relocate the measurement reference plane to its tip. Due to errors in RF cables and connectors, the probe experiences similar offsets arising from probe‑cable loss and reflections, as well as from the transition to the coaxial connector.
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