Careers

News/Events

Site Map



		Press Releases



		Trade Show Schedule

Press Releases < back to 2007

Contact:
Dave Quane,
inTEST Corporation

			2007 Release
			10/04/07		inTEST Appoints Matthias Wolf Managing Director of Intestlogic GmbH
			6/21/07		inTEST Corporation Receives ISO 9001:2000 Certification
			3/09/07		inTEST Announces V-Touch
			2/05/07		Intestlogic Moves to Larger Facility

inTEST Announces Launch of V-Touch Extended-Life Contactors

The launch combines two major advances in one new product. Used in the final testing of ICs, V-Touch™ Extended-Life Contactors™ not only provide more-precise pin alignment, they also deliver significantly longer cycle life than conventional sockets.

CHERRY HILL, NJ, March 9, 2007 – inTEST Corporation (Nasdaq: INTT), a world leader in developing and manufacturing equipment that reduces the cost of semiconductor testing, today announced the introduction of V-Touch™ Extended-Life Contactors™. The new product line combines two important improvements in contactor design.

First, the V-Touch Extended-Life Contactor’s spring pins are more precisely aligned, with critical feature machining tolerances that are far tighter than those of conventional products: less than 0.0003” (approximately 8 microns).

This unrivaled precision engineering is an important advance for final test, because proper spring pin alignment is so critical to getting repeatable electrical measurements and minimizing false negatives (the rejection of good ICs). Degraded spring pin alignment leads quickly to premature pin wear and a host of efficiency-killing problems like higher reject rates and lower yields.

Second, the V-Touch designs deliver much longer cycle life than conventional contactors. Of course, this is partly due to their superior pin alignment. But there is more: V-Touch Extended-Life Contactors are manufactured with Dupont’s state-of-the-art Vespel® polyimide. This extraordinary organic polymer is renowned for its low wear, outstanding creep resistance, impact resistance, and strength. It holds its shape far better than conventional contactor materials, even in the increased humidity and temperature commonly found in some test environments.

According to Dale Christman, General Manager of inTEST Silicon Valley, “Longer contactor cycle life is very important in final test, where downtime hurts efficiency and throughput. For example,” said Christman, “in a recent survey of companies where
V-Touch contactors were being tested, we found improvements in cycle life of anywhere from 35% to 100% compared to the conventional contactors they had been using. These cycle life improvements didn’t just lower contactor replacement costs,” continued Christman, “they also produced significant reductions in overhead costs, because there was so much less system downtime and fewer false negatives or retests.”

The V-Touch line, which is priced competitively with conventional contactors, also gives users a virtually unlimited choice of electrical performance. Because inTEST optimizes the design for each probe structure, customers are free to use whatever spring probe they prefer for their test.

inTEST’s new V-Touch contactor line is used in the final testing of semiconductor IC (integrated circuit) devices. They create an electrical connection between the ICs being tested and the large test heads that perform the tests. Semiconductor manufacturers perform this final test to ensure that their ICs are operating properly before shipping them to be manufactured into cell phones, computers, and the myriad other electronic products that use ICs.

For complete performance and pricing information on the new V-Touch Extended-Life Contactor line, call inTEST Silicon Valley at 408-678-9123 or visit inTEST’s website, at www.intest.com.

About inTEST® Corporation
inTEST Corporation (www.intest.com) is a leading independent designer, manufacturer, and marketer of products that enable semiconductor manufacturers to improve profitability by increasing the speed and efficiency of the semiconductor manufacturing process. The company’s products, used by semiconductor manufacturers to perform final testing of integrated circuits and wafers, include manipulators and docking hardware products, temperature management systems, and customized interface solutions. Headquartered in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, inTEST has manufacturing facilities in New Jersey, Massachusetts, California, Germany, the UK, and Singapore. In addition, inTEST has offices in Japan for design, sales, service, and support, with additional support personnel in Arizona.

inTEST, Centaur, Transpar, Centaur Universal SOC Interface, and Test Design are trademarks of inTEST Corporation.