AbstractLarge area, 7:25cm 8:76cm silicon drift detectors have beendeveloped and are inproduction for the ALICEexperiment at LHC. An active area of the detector of more than 50cm 2 imposes high demands on the quality ofprocessingandrawmaterial.Automatedtestingprocedureshavebeendevelopedtotestdetectorsbeforemountingthemontheladders.ProbestationsforALICESDDtestingweredesignedandbuiltatINFN,TriesteandOhioStateUniversity(OSU).Testingprocedures,detectorselectioncriteriaandsomedetailsoftheOSUprobestationdesignarediscussed.r 2003ElsevierB.V.Allrightsreserved. PACS: 29.40.WkKeywords: Probestation;Silicondriftdetectors 0. IntroductionThe inner tracking system (ITS) [1] of theALICE experiment surrounds the interactionregionwithsixconcentriccylindricallayers.TwoofthemareSiliconDriftDetector(SDD)layers.TheinnerSDDlayeriscomposedof14ladders,eachholdingsixdetectors.TheouterSDDlayerismade of 22 ladders supporting eight detectorseach.Intotal260highqualitySDDsareneeded.In SDDs fabricated on n-type silicon, theelectronscreatedbyanionizingparticleinafullydepleted bulk of silicon drift toward the anodes.Charge sharing between anodes provides onecoordinateofeach particle crossingthedetector.Theothercoordinateisdeterminedfromthedrifttime measurement. Deposited energy can beobtained from the signal waveform. Beam testmeasurements and simulations of the ALICESDDsshowthattheachievablepositionresolutionalong the drift is B30mm [2]. Critical factors toachievesucharesolutionarelownoiseandoverallgoodqualityofthedetectors.DC characteristics of the detectors such asanode leakage currents and voltage distributionacrossthecathodesprovidesufficientinformation