Accurate and reliable machine vision components are an absolute requirement for all steps in the inspection and assembly of electronics and semiconductors, including wafer probing and dicing, wire bonding and chip flipping, and device assembly.

Microlithography is used to manufacture semiconductor wafers. Once aligned, the wafers are diced into chips and assembled, along with additional components, into electronics devices like integrated circuits. Chips are deposited onto circuit boards using pick-and-place (P&P) robots or chip shooters. Chip placement on the board is monitored by automated optical inspection (AOI) systems. Individual chips and components are then soldered together with a ball grid array or other advanced techniques in a factory automation environment.

Why Electronics & Semiconductors Inspection?

As Moore’s Law has shown over the last few decades, the number of transistors on integrated circuits has been doubling every two years. Additional transistors require additional computing and processing power. Computer, smartphone, and other electronics manufacturers then make use of this additional processing power by offering faster speeds, better graphics, and overall improvements in the next generations of products. While it is assumed that some electronics markets will eventually reach saturation, thousands of millions of electronic consumer goods like smartphones are sold each year and will likely continue to sell for the foreseeable future.

Optics for Electronics & Semiconductors Inspection

Machine vision lenses, including telecentric lenses, low distortion fixed focal length lenses, line scan lenses, and microscope objectives, are often used in semiconductor production with inline illumination to observe and align semiconductor wafers during microlithography.

These machine vision lenses, along with illumination sources like ring or spot lights, are used in automated optical inspection (AOI) systems that perform visual inspection of electronic chips, flat panel displays, and many more electronic components. AOI systems monitor attributes like chip placement and orientation with respect to the entire board and the depth or height of layered devices, such as CMOS sensors. AOI systems also ensure that connecting leads are slotted into the correct ports.