Patent ID: 9461013
Filing Date: 2016-10-04
CPC Classification: B23K,B65H,H01L

Claim Text:
1. A wire spool system for a wire bonding apparatus, comprising: a wire reel arranged to receive a wire; a wire guide for feeding a free end of the wire to a bond head of the wire bonding apparatus; a tensioning mechanism for tensioning the wire to define a wire path between the wire reel and the wire guide; and an imaging module comprising a camera having an image sensor, and an image processing unit; wherein the camera is positioned to image, by said image sensor, at least a portion of the wire path between the wire reel and the wire guide to generate image data, and wherein the image processing unit is configured to process the image data to determine a geometry and/or a change in geometry of the at least a portion of the wire path between the wire reel and the wire guide.