Patent ID: 7768283

Claim:
A universal socketless integrated circuit (IC) electrical test fixture, the test fixture comprising: a probing platform to accept an IC, the IC having electrical contacts formed on a bottom surface in an array of m rows, where each row includes n contacts, where m is a variable greater than, or equal to 1, and n is a variable greater than, or equal to 1; a probe arm including p probe pins, where p is variable greater than, or equal to n; a clamping mechanism to mechanically interface the p probe pins to a row of n IC contacts under test; an electrical measurement device having a first interface connected to the p probe pins of the probe arm to measure electrical characteristics associated with the IC contacts under test, a second interface to supply a reference voltage, and a third interface to supply a select signal; a 1-to-p switch having p signal inputs, where each signal input is connected to a corresponding probe pin in the probe arm, the switch having a control input to accept a select signal with at least n possible voltage levels for selecting a signal input in response to the select signal voltage level, and a signal output connected to the electrical measurement device first interface; wherein the probe arm, the clamping mechanism, and the probe platform work in cooperation to electrically interface any row of the IC contacts with the electrical measurement device; and, wherein the electrical measurement device is a curve tracer, where the first interface is a port selected from a group consisting of a collector port (C) and an emitter (E) port, the curve tracer including an unselected port as a second interface supplying the reference voltage to one of the IC contacts, and a base port (B) as the third interface, and where the electrical characteristics of the IC contacts under test are measured with respect to the reference voltage, sequentially in response to the select signals.