Detection and Prediction of Probe Mark Damage in Wafer Testing

In wafer testing, the test probe needs to contact the surface of the semiconductor wafer to measure electrical parameters such as resistance, capacitance, and current. The probe mark damage frequently occurs on the machine during wafer testing. This phenomenon causes inaccuracies in electrical parameter testing, significantly reducing the yield in IC packaging processes and resulting in substantial manufacturing cost losses. Therefore, this study proposed an effective probe mark damage detection and prediction method to prevent significant yield reduction due to inaccurate testing. This study uses importance analysis from random forests and correlation analysis to identify the critical parameters influencing probe mark damage. Introducing these parameters into a Sparse Transformer with hybrid normalization can successfully train an intelligent model for predicting the occurrence of probe mark damage. The model accurately predicts the probability of probe mark damage and promptly adjusts machine parameters to avoid inaccuracies in electrical parameter settings. The proposed approach can outperform other methods, achieving two very high accuracies of 95.1% (at room temperature) and 93.5% (at high temperature) and significantly reducing the occurrence of large-area probe mark damage.