Capabilities of FormFactor and Advantest Products Extend Cost-of-Test Benefits to the Companies’ DRAM Customers

LIVERMORE, Calif. – Dec. 3, 2003 – FormFactor, Inc. (Nasdaq: FORM), a leading provider of advanced wafer probe cards, today announced support of Advantest’s T5377, the company’s latest dynamic random access memory (DRAM) wafer sort test system. FormFactor’s PH100 and PH150 are the industry’s most advanced volume-produced large-area probe cards for DRAM test, providing high parallelism to match the capabilities of the newly announced Advantest T5377. Advantest will display a FormFactor PH150 probe card alongside the T5377 in the company’s booth at Semicon Japan, Dec. 3 – 5, 2003 in Chiba, Japan.

In its November 2003 review of the DRAM market, DeDios and Associates, a DRAM industry analyst firm, forecasts that DRAM bit-growth will exceed 45 percent per year for the next three years. The rapid bit growth will be fueled by migration to 300 mm wafer manufacturing, which will in turn drive increased capital investment in wafer test. New 300 mm DRAM wafer test operations can employ FormFactor’s tester resource enhancement (TRETM) technology in combination with Advantest’s T5377 to significantly reduce cost of test and capital equipment investments.

The combination of the Advantest T5377 and FormFactor PH150 probe cards’ TRE capabilities enables expansion of the system’s native 64-device-in-parallel capability to test up to 256 devices in parallel utilizing FormFactor’s large-area, high-pin-count wafer probe cards. The Advantest T5377 with FormFactor wafer probe cards utilizing TRE can test 300 mm DRAM wafers in as few as six touchdowns, delivering a greater than 3 times improvement in throughput versus the native 64 device in parallel capability.

FormFactor’s PH100 and PH150 advanced wafer probe cards use the MicroSpringTM interconnect, FormFactor’s patented probe contact technology, to make reliable contact and provide greater than 9000 wafer contacts per probe card. The MicroSpring interconnect combines superior accuracy, reliability and signal integrity with the highest parallelism, and is proven to enable 300 mm DRAM wafer test in as few as six touchdowns.

“FormFactor’s support of Advantest’s new DRAM test system is the latest example of how we work closely with our tester partners to reduce cost of test and capital investment for the semiconductor industry,” said Mark Brandemuehl, vice president of marketing for FormFactor, Inc. “The industry is responding by rapidly adopting FormFactor’s highly parallel wafer probing solutions to reduce capital investment requirements, particularly for 300 mm wafer test capacity expansions.”

In 2002, FormFactor ranked first in the world in overall wafer test probe card sales and led the market for advanced probe cards, according to VLSI Research. Used in the early stage of DRAM, Flash and microprocessor manufacturing, FormFactor’s advanced wafer probe cards detect defective chips before they are assembled or packaged.