Patent ID: 8726748

Claim:
A probe apparatus comprising: a plurality of prober chambers arranged in a straight line; and a loader chamber having a substrate transfer mechanism that takes out a test target substrate from a container provided in an upper area of the prober chambers, lowers the test target substrate to a substantially the same height as a loading/unloading port of each prober chamber, moves in front of a row of the prober chambers in parallel to the row of the prober chambers and transfers the test target substrate into the prober chamber, wherein electrical characteristics of a test target chip on the test target substrate are measured by bringing electrode pads on the test target substrate mounted on a mounting table installed within the prober chamber into contact with probes of a probe card, a reading mechanism for reading information recorded on the test target substrate held on the substrate transfer mechanism is installed at a horizontal moving mechanism that moves the substrate transfer mechanism in front of the row of the prober chambers in parallel to the row of the prober chambers at substantially the same height as the loading/unloading port of the prober chamber, and the information recorded on the test target substrate is read by the reading mechanism at a position where the test target substrate is lowered to substantially the same height as the loading/unloading port of the prober chamber.