The present invention relates to an aligning apparatus for substrates, and more particularly to an aligning apparatus suitable for accurately aligning auxiliary connecting plates such as a fixture plate for test or a connecting terminal plate so as to fit to both sides of a substrate such as a printed substrate or a ceramic substrate.
To perform an inspection of a printed substrate or a ceramic substrate which are formed with wiring patterns thereon, anisotropic conductive rubber sheets, which resistance values decrease at portions pressed down, are usually disposed at both sides of the substrate. By supplying current while applying pressure to these anisotropic conductive rubber sheets through a fixture plate for test, the inspection as to whether or not there is any open circuit on the substrate or short-circuit of the wiring pattern is carried out. This kind of background art is, for example, disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 69-206776.
Furthermore, as disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 53-81161, a so-called zebra connector, which is a striped pattern rubber sheet formed by alternately arraying low resistance portions and high resistance portions, is disposed on a substrate to connect with a terminal plate.
Recently, there is a tendency such that wiring patterns are formed finely. Therefore, unless the testing fixture plate is precisely positioned with respect to the substrate or unless the zebra connector is precisely positioned with respect to the terminal plate, a desired conductive circuit cannot be completed. Thus, usage of anisotropic conductive rubber sheets or zebra connectors become meaningless.
Furthermore, there was such a problem that, from the view point of facilitating aligning operation, if wiring pattern was gathered to a blank portion on a substrate so as to expand respective terminal gap, the wiring pattern had to be elongated unusually to gather its terminals to the blank portion and, thus, such an elongation of wiring pattern resulted in increasing frequency of occurrence of open-circuits or short-circuits.