US Patent Issued to FEI on Feb. 10 for "Techniques for detecting probe landing in integrated circuit testing systems" (California, Texas Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Feb. 11 -- United States Patent no. 12,546,819, issued on Feb. 10, was assigned to FEI Co. (Hillsboro, Ore.).

"Techniques for detecting probe landing in integrated circuit testing systems" was invented by James S. Vickers (San Jose, Calif.), Seema Somani (San Jose, Calif.), Brian Tilley (Anna, Texas), Michael Berkmyre (Princeton, Texas) and Richard Stallcup (Frisco, Texas).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Systems, methods, and techniques for detecting a contact between a probe tip and a sample surface. A method can include dithering a probe in a plane substantially parallel with a surface using a periodic motion having a dither frequency. The method can include directing a beam ...