Abstract: There is executed a probe method wherein probe needles are brought into contact with electrode pads of chips to be measured arranged on a semiconductor wafer and an electronic characteristic thereof is measured in each measuring stage in a probe apparatus having a plurality of measuring stages on one loader. First of all, one opening stage in the measuring stage is detected and the wafer is transferred to the one stage. In one stage, the wafer is loaded on a mount which is operatable in X, Y, Z, and .theta. directions. In consideration of the relationship between the array direction of the chip and a measuring order of the chip and the corresponding relationship between the probe needles and the electrode pads, the wafer is positioned with respect to the probe needles. According to the method, it can be discriminated whether or not the wafer is circular.

Abstract: The electric characteristic of each of semiconductor chips formed on a semiconductor wafer substrate is measured while keeping probes contacted with electrode pads of the semiconductor chip. The wafer is mounted on a mount movable in directions X, Y, Z and .theta.. The array direction of the semiconductor chips on the wafer is positioned in the directions X and Y, in which the mount is moved, at an alignment position and the electrode pads of each of the chips are positioned relative to their corresponding probes at a measuring position. Information needed to carry out the positioning at the alignment position is stored as a first data and information needed to carry out the positioning at the measuring position is stored as a second data. The following three steps can be selectively conducted after the positioning at the measuring position. Measurement is conducted relative to the substrate at a first step.