VERBONDS: Multisensor Bond Verification Prototype and its Industrial Evaluation

Abstract

The inspection of solder bonds is becoming an increasingly difficult task for human operators given the reduction in size of components and the number of joints on a typical Printed Circuit Board (PCB). With one hundred percent inspection by humans a practical impossibility and the high error rates of human inspectors there is a need for an inspection machine to provide reliable quantitative information about the bonding process. This paper describes the first industrial evaluation of the VERBONDS inspection machine which uses multisensor technology to provide a system which is flexible in coverage, accuracy and cost. Faults on visible joints can be reliably and rapidly detected using vision or laser techniques while the X-ray system provides for the inspection of hidden joints and for the detection of in-solder faults. The VERBONDS machine may operate with one independent sensor or with any combination of sensors.

This project is funded by the European Commission, under the Brite/Euram BREU-CT91-0487 VERBONDS.