Did You Know...
...that the x-ray was discovered purely by accident? When German physicist Wilhelm Konrad von Roentgen was experimenting with cathode rays in 1895, he put an activated Crookes tube in a book and went out to lunch. When he returned, he discovered that a key that had also been placed in the book showed up as an image on the developed film!
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 6850637 | Lighting arrangement for automated optical inspection system An optical inspection system with an improved illumination system. The improved illumination system used to illustrate the invention has a base formed from a printed circuit board. Substrates for mounting lighting elements, which are exemplified by light emitting di... | 02/01/2005 |
| 6769935 | Matrix connector An electrical connector assembly suitable for use in a matrix assembly. The electrical connector assembly has two connectors, each assembled from wafers. The individual wafers are sheilded and separate shield pieces are positioned in one connector transverse to the ... | 08/03/2004 |
| 6717115 | Semiconductor handler for rapid testing A strip, leadframe or panel type handling device for use in testing semiconductor components. The handling device has a thermal plate assembly with embedded electrical resistance heaters. The heaters are separately controlled in zones to provide uniform temperature ... | 04/06/2004 |
| 6497581 | Robust, small scale electrical contactor A contactor for use in testing integrated circuit chips. The contactor is made with an array of V-shaped contact elements. The V-shaped contact elements are nested so that the contact elements can be longer than the pitch of the contact points. In this wa... | 12/24/2002 |
| 6466007 | Test system for smart card and indentification devices and the like An automatic test system for testing smart card chips. The system includes synchronization circuitry that allows response signals generated at random times after a stimulus to be synchronized with a pattern generator. The described system has multiple pat... | 10/15/2002 |
| 6446560 | Single carriage robotic monorail material transfer system A system to automate distribution of materials and tooling to production machines, where a very simple cross-section track, such as a circle or an X, is anchored to the equipment and to load/unload stations for materials and tooling, and where simple one ... | 09/10/2002 |
| 6374379 | Low-cost configuration for monitoring and controlling parametric measurement units in automatic test equipment Pin slice circuitry used in automatic test equipment is disclosed. The pin slice circuitry includes a portion implemented using CMOS technology and a portion implemented using bipolar technology. The CMOS portion includes a plurality of timing generator c... | 04/16/2002 |
| 6291981 | Automatic test equipment with narrow output pulses Automatic test equipment suitable for testing high speed semiconductor devices. The test equipment includes a formatter circuit with a flip flop that produces an output in the desired format even if the edge signals that control the setting and resetting ... | 09/18/2001 |
| 6286120 | Memory architecture for automatic test equipment using vector module table A tester having a fast but flexible pattern generator which is implemented using readily available memories. The tester includes a pattern memory which holds test vectors. The vectors are organized into modules. The order of execution of the modules is se... | 09/04/2001 |
| 6282682 | Automatic test equipment using sigma delta modulation to create reference levels Pin slice circuitry used in automatic test equipment is disclosed. The pin slice circuitry includes a portion implemented using CMOS technology and a portion implemented using bipolar technology. The CMOS portion includes a plurality of timing generator c... | 08/28/2001 |
| 6152742 | Surface mounted electrical connector A high speed, high density surface mount connector which may be easily manufactured. The connector is formed by injection molding a ground plate into a portion of an insulative housing, leaving conducting beam portions and tail portions extending from opp... | 11/28/2000 |
| 6104202 | Interface apparatus for automatic test equipment An interface between a test head portion of automatic test equipment and handling device such as a prober. The interface employs preloaded kinematic couplings between the test head and handling device and between the probe card and the test head. These co... | 08/15/2000 |
| 6097201 | System to simultaneously test trays of integrated circuit packages A test system for testing numerous parts simultaneously. A stack of test boards is provided in a test chamber. Each of the test boards has a region of contactors on it. To perform a test, trays are inserted between the boards in the stack and aligned with... | 08/01/2000 |
| 6091062 | Method and apparatus for temperature control of a semiconductor electrical-test contractor assembly A semiconductor device handler with a temperature controlled test area. Temperature control is provided in part through the use of temperature controlled air forced across the test area. For heating the test area, electrical resistance heaters are uniform... | 07/18/2000 |
| 6073259 | Low cost CMOS tester with high channel density Automatic test equipment for semiconductor devices. The automatic test equipment contains numerous channels of electronic circuitry in which precisely timed test signals are generated. Significant advantages in both cost and size are achieved by incorpora... | 06/06/2000 |
| 6066953 | Architecture for RF signal automatic test equipment An RF module useful for configuring RF sources and receivers to make a wide range of measurements on a device under test. The module includes a directional element which allows one receiver to measure both the input and the output signals from one test po... | 05/23/2000 |
| 6024526 | Integrated prober, handler and tester for semiconductor components An integral unit for use in testing semiconductor components. The unit is designed to manipulate either packaged semiconductor components or semiconductor wafers and present them to a test head. It provides significant space savings because it replaces th... | 02/15/2000 |
| 6006980 | Method and apparatus for mounting connector to circuit board A surface mount electrical connector incorporating features to facilitate alignment of contact tails to contact pads on a printed circuit board. The contact tails are held together with a tie bar. Tabs on the tie bar are shaped to engage features on a bla... | 12/28/1999 |
| 5993259 | High speed, high density electrical connector A high speed, high density electrical connector for use with printed circuit boards. The connector is in two pieces with one piece having pins and shield plates and the other having socket type signal contacts and shield plates. The shields have a groundi... | 11/30/1999 |
| 5980321 | High speed, high density electrical connector A high speed, high density electrical connector for use with printed circuit boards. The connector is in two pieces with one piece having pins and shield plates and the other having socket type signal contacts and shield plates. The shields have a groundi... | 11/09/1999 |
| 5971156 | Semiconductor chip tray with rolling contact retention mechanism A transport tray for semiconductor devices that includes a retention mechanism. The tray is formed with molded plastic inserts positioned in a tray. Each insert includes a contact surface that is designed to have two stable points, one corresponding to a ... | 10/26/1999 |
| 5973394 | Small contactor for test probes, chip packaging and the like An electrical contact element that solves many problems associated with making electrical connections to integrated circuit chips. The contact element fits in small areas, but in some configurations can provide compliance in multiple directions to provide... | 10/26/1999 |
| 5949002 | Manipulator for automatic test equipment with active compliance A manipulator for an automatic test equipment test head. The manipulator includes a plurality of motors that are coupled with load cells. A controller provides motor control signals based on the output of the load cells. The manipulator may be operated in... | 09/07/1999 |
| 5938781 | Production interface for an integrated circuit test system A production operator interface is created using self-contained ActiveX controls each of which provide an interface to a specific part of the overall test system. These controls all communicate among themselves automatically. The production interface uses... | 08/17/1999 |
| 5931048 | Manipulator for automatic test equipment test head A manipulator for a test head connected to automatic test equipment through a heavy, inflexible cable. The manipulator includes a telescoping column assembly to which is mounted a vertical member. A cradle holding the test head is mounted to the vertical ... | 08/03/1999 |
| 5924003 | Method of manufacturing ball grid arrays for improved testability A ball grid array package for integrated circuit chips that is designed to facilitate testing. The balls are planarized with high precision to make electrical contact more accurate for testing. Contact, even on fine pitched arrays, can be readily made. A ... | 07/13/1999 |
| 5918037 | Generating tests for an extended finite state machine using different coverage levels for different submodels An automatic test generation system in which the coverage levels of the tests can be controlled to tradeoff between the extent of the test conducted and the length of time required to execute the test. The system under test is modeled as an extended finit... | 06/29/1999 |
| 5910895 | Low cost, easy to use automatic test system software Automatic test equipment for semiconductor devices with low cost, easy to use software for developing and executing test programs. The tester is controlled with a computer work station running a commercially available spread sheet program. The commerciall... | 06/08/1999 |
| 5905967 | Timing generator with multiple coherent synchronized clocks Automatic test equipment with programmable timing generators to generate digital signals and analog signals. The digital timing generator can be programmed to generate timing signals with a resolution finer than that of the master clock of the timing gene... | 05/18/1999 |
| 5881130 | Fast and noise-insensitive load status detection Method and apparatus for detecting whether load coils are attached to a telephone line. A stimulus waveform having multiple frequency components is applied to the line. The current and voltage at the near end of the line are coherently sampled and transfo... | 03/09/1999 |
| 5880591 | System for circuit modules having a plurality of independently positionable probes A test system for multi-chip modules. Test points on the multi-chip modules are brought to the perimeter of the modules for easy access. The test points are grouped in arrays with an associated alignment post. The multi-chip module is probed with several ... | 03/09/1999 |
| 5870451 | Method and apparatus for high impedance ringer detection A line test system for diagnosing and segmenting faults in a switched telephone network. The system includes a remote measurement unit installed at a switch and a test system controller. The test system controller stores data about operating parameters of... | 02/09/1999 |
| 5860816 | Electrical connector assembled from wafers A modular electrical connector made from wafers. Each wafer contains one column of contact elements and is made separately. The wafers are of two different types, which snap together to form two row modules. The modules contain attachment features that al... | 01/19/1999 |
| 5854797 | Tester with fast refire recovery time Automatic test equipment for semiconductor devices. The automatic test equipment contains numerous channels of electronic circuitry in which precisely timed test signal are generated. Significant advantages in both cost and size are achieved by incorporat... | 12/29/1998 |
| 5844412 | Board test apparatus and method for fast capacitance measurement A printed circuit board tester incorporating hardware for fast capacitive measurements. The circuit board tester includes a digital signal processor that can both source and measure test signals. It also includes an amplifier having an input and an output... | 12/01/1998 |
| 5839769 | Expanding gripper with elastically variable pitch screw An expandable gripper for semiconductor processing equipment that allows the pitch between semiconductor chips to be adjusted. To adjust the pitch, several pick and place mechanisms are mounted around a shaft using nuts. The threads of the nuts have varia... | 11/24/1998 |
| 5828674 | Production interface for integrated circuit test system A production operator interface is created using self-contained ActiveX controls each of which provide an interface to a specific part of the overall test system. These controls all communicate among themselves automatically. The production interface uses... | 10/27/1998 |
| 5821764 | Interface apparatus for automatic test equipment An interface between a test head portion of automatic test equipment and a handling device such as a prober. The interface employs preloaded kinematic couplings between the test head and the handling device and between the probe card and the test head. Th... | 10/13/1998 |
| 5820397 | High speed high density connector electronic signals A connector for printed circuit boards. Electrical connections are made between two printed boards through flex circuits which have contact pads pressed against contact pads on each of the printed circuit boards. Sufficient, uniform pressure is maintained... | 10/13/1998 |
| 5795797 | Method of making memory chips using memory tester providing fast repair A process for manufacturing semiconductor memories which includes a method of quickly and effectively identifying which faulty memory cells are to be replaced by redundant memory structures. Redundant rows and columns are assigned to replace rows and colu... | 08/18/1998 |
