Patent ID: 7940065

Claim:
A probe apparatus for measuring electrical characteristics of chips to be inspected while bringing probes of a probe card into contact with electrode pads of the chips by moving a mounting table which mounts thereon a substrate to be inspected where the chips are arranged, the probe apparatus comprising: a first stage provided on a base table so as to be movable in an X direction; a second stage provided on the first stage so as to be movable in a Y direction; a third stage provided on the second stage so as to be movable in a Z direction and having the mounting table; an image pickup for picking up images of the probes and the substrate to be inspected on the mounting table; a Z position measuring unit which acquires a Z direction position of the mounting table and has a Z scale extending in the Z direction and a reading unit for reading the Z scale, the Z scale being provided at one side of the second and the third stage, the reading unit being provided at the other side of the second and the third stage; a computation unit for obtaining a calculated contact position between the probes and the electrode pads of the substrate based on the images picked up by the image pickup with respect to a coordinate position on coordinates of a driving system which includes a Z direction position and X and Y direction positions measured by a measuring unit for measuring X and Y direction positions of the mounting table; and a correcting unit for correcting, when the Z direction position of the mounting table measured by the Z position measuring unit is different from a preset calculated contact position in a state where the probes contact with the electrode pads of the substrate, the Z direction position of the contact position based on a change amount thereof for a next contact operation.