Source: http://www.google.com/patents/US7512260?dq=6,205,432
Timestamp: 2015-01-27 04:36:09
Document Index: 3468025

Matched Legal Cases: ['art 3', 'art 4', 'art 5', 'art 6', 'art 7', 'art 20', 'art 20', 'art 18', 'arts 6', 'arts 6', 'application No. 2005']

Patent US7512260 - Substrate inspection method and apparatus - Google PatentsSearch Images Maps Play YouTube News Gmail Drive More »Sign inAdvanced Patent SearchPatentsPreparation steps are taken before a substrate with components is inspected and a whole image of a standard substrate is prepared preliminarily and inspection areas are determined for target portions to be inspected on this whole image. At the time of the inspection, a camera is positioned corresponding...http://www.google.com/patents/US7512260?utm_source=gb-gplus-sharePatent US7512260 - Substrate inspection method and apparatusAdvanced Patent SearchPublication numberUS7512260 B2Publication typeGrantApplication numberUS 11/218,920Publication dateMar 31, 2009Filing dateSep 2, 2005Priority dateSep 6, 2004Fee statusPaidAlso published asEP1638050A2, EP1638050A3, EP1638050B1, US20060050267Publication number11218920, 218920, US 7512260 B2, US 7512260B2, US-B2-7512260, US7512260 B2, US7512260B2InventorsKiyoshi Murakami, Yasunori Asano, Takashi Kinoshita, Teruhisa YotsuyaOriginal AssigneeOmron CorporationExport CitationBiBTeX, EndNote, RefManPatent Citations (21), Non-Patent Citations (1), Referenced by (2), Classifications (11), Legal Events (2) External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, EspacenetSubstrate inspection method and apparatusUS 7512260 B2Abstract Preparation steps are taken before a substrate with components is inspected and a whole image of a standard substrate is prepared preliminarily and inspection areas are determined for target portions to be inspected on this whole image. At the time of the inspection, a camera is positioned corresponding to a target portion to obtain a target image and an area corresponding to the target image is extracted from the whole image and displacement values of this area are calculated relative to the target image. The setting position of the inspection area is corrected by the calculated displacement values and an inspection area is set on the target image based on the corrected coordinates.
step E of registering said standard image specified in said step C and the set data of the inspection area specified in said step D for each the target areas at the time of said inspection. Description
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION This invention relates to a method of and an apparatus for using an image taken of a component mounting substrate (herein referred to simply as a substrate) to inspect the presence or absence of components, their positional displacements and appropriateness of soldering.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is therefore an object of this invention in view of the problem stated above to eliminate the effects of errors in the motion of the positioning stage for the substrate and the camera by adopting a software method of adjusting the setting position of the inspection area with respect to the target image such that the inspection area can be accurately set with respect to a target portion of inspection and the accuracy of inspection can be improved.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a substrate inspection apparatus embodying this invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION FIG. 1 shows a substrate inspection apparatus embodying this invention, adapted to process an image taken of a target substrate to be inspected and to judge appropriateness of the mounted conditions of the components mounted to the substrate as well as its soldering condition and comprising an image taking part 3, a light emitting part 4, a control part 5, an X-axis table control part 6 and a Y-axis table control part 7. In FIG. 1, symbol 1T indicates the target substrate to be inspected and symbol 1S indicates a standard substrate with mounted components in good conditions and to be used for the teaching process prior to the inspection process.
These inspection data are �taught� prior to an inspection by using an image taken of the standard substrate 1S or preliminarily registered standard inspection data. They are arranged as a judgment file for each kind of substrates. The aforementioned data managing part 20 is a memory for storing the link data that correlate between the kinds of substrates and the judgment files. After the name of the target substrate 1T is inputted, the control unit 11 reads out the judgment file corresponding to it based on the link data in the data managing part 20 and sets it in the memory 13. The image processor 15 and the inspection part 18 carry out their processing based on the inspection data in the judgment file which has been read out.
The substrates 1T and 1S according to this example are provided with positioning marks 105 and 106 respectively at the lower right-hand corner and the upper left-hand corner. The CAD data also include corresponding positioning marks 105 a and 106 a. In the example of FIG. 2, after the standard image 100 and the map image 101 are positioned such that the positioning marks 105 a and 106 a on the map image 101 will match the positioning marks 105 and 106 on the whole image 100, the positions and sizes of the inspection areas 102 on the map image 101 are identified as the setting data of the inspection areas 102. By thus matching the coordinate system of the standard image 100 with that of the map image 101, an inspection area with a size sufficiently large to include any target inspection portion can be set at an appropriate position.
For determining the setting conditions of an inspection area, an image of the target area is extracted from the map image 101 of the whole substrate based on the relative coordinates of the target area with respect to the positioning mark, and this extracted map image and the standard image are �superposed�, that is, the position data and size data of the inspection area obtained from the CAD data are converted to the coordinate system of the standard image.
EXAMPLE 1 By this example, after the standard substrate 1S is divided into a plurality of areas to photograph, the images of the individual areas are connected together to produce a whole image of the standard substrate 1S and registered. Overlapped areas of width of a specified number of pixels are set between each pair of mutually adjacent areas corresponding to the error generated by the motions of the X-axis and Y-axis table control parts 6 and 7 (referred to as the machine error). On each of these images, a pattern matching process is carried out by using the image data of these overlapped portions and after the corresponding relationships of pixels are adjusted based on the result of this matching process, corresponding pixels are overlapped to obtain a correct whole image.
FIGS. 4-6 show a method of forming a whole image by using character array �ABC� for convenience to represent a distribution pattern of components on a substrate. In this example, the target substrate to be processed is divided into six target areas to be photographed to obtain six images g1-g6. In this example, the image g2 at the lower center is set first, as shown in FIG. 5, to start the overlapping process to make a whole image. Thereafter, the method explained above with reference to FIG. 3 is used and the images g5, g6, g3, g1 and g4 are overlapped sequentially in this order and a whole image 103 as shown in FIG. 6 is completed.
EXAMPLE 2 In this example and the examples that follow, methods of setting a target area and an inspection area and methods of detecting the displacement between a target image and a target area will be explained more in detail for the inspection of soldered portions (or fillets) of a component.
EXAMPLE 3 Example 2 presumed that the target portion to be examined is contained within any one of the images that comprise the whole image. There are situations as shown in FIG. 15, however, where a component (QFP) 56 to be examined is positioned so as to span over a plurality of images. In such a situation, it is desirable to be able to set a target area at an arbitrarily selectable position on the whole image 103 as in the case of Example 1.
EXAMPLE 4 Example 4 also relates to a substrate as shown in FIG. 15, a target area 57 is set so as to wholly include a component 56 and the image in this target area 57 is registered as the standard image G11. Unlike Example 3, however, the whole image 103 is not created and the setting position of the target 57 including the component 56 is identified on the CAD data and an image to become the standard image G11 is obtained by matching the position of the camera 3A with the target area of the standard substrate 1S. Since the effects of machine errors of the X-axis and Y-axis table control parts 6 and 7 must be taken into consideration when a standard image is created by such a method, however, a teaching process is carried out in Example 4 by a routine as shown in FIG. 17.
Patent CitationsCited PatentFiling datePublication dateApplicantTitleUS5010504 *Feb 22, 1988Apr 23, 1991Eastman Kodak CompanyDigital image noise suppression method using SVD block transformUS5185811 *Jan 21, 1992Feb 9, 1993International Business Machines CorporationAutomated visual inspection of electronic component leads prior to placementUS5187754 *Apr 30, 1991Feb 16, 1993General Electric CompanyForming, with the aid of an overview image, a composite image from a mosaic of imagesUS5325449 *May 15, 1992Jun 28, 1994David Sarnoff Research Center, Inc.Method for fusing images and apparatus thereforUS5371690 *Jan 17, 1992Dec 6, 1994Cognex CorporationMethod and apparatus for inspection of surface mounted devicesUS5488674 *May 12, 1993Jan 30, 1996David Sarnoff Research Center, Inc.Method for fusing images and apparatus thereforUS5694481 *Apr 12, 1995Dec 2, 1997Semiconductor Insights Inc.Automated design analysis system for generating circuit schematics from high magnification images of an integrated circuitUS5764536 *Dec 19, 1995Jun 9, 1998Omron CorporationMethod and device to establish viewing zones and to inspect products using viewing zonesUS5768443 *Dec 19, 1995Jun 16, 1998Cognex CorporationMethod for coordinating multiple fields of view in multi-cameraUS6075905 *Jul 16, 1997Jun 13, 2000Sarnoff CorporationMethod and apparatus for mosaic image constructionUS6307210 *Sep 17, 1997Oct 23, 2001Cognex Technology And Investment CorporationDevice for imaging object to be inspected and device for inspecting semiconductor packageUS6549222 *Jun 27, 2000Apr 15, 2003ChipworksLock-step cursors for feature alignmentUS7085411 *Feb 28, 2005Aug 1, 2006Scanner Technologies CorporationMethod of manufacturing electronic components including a method for three dimensional inspectionUS7149343 *Feb 18, 2003Dec 12, 2006Marena Systems CorporationMethods for analyzing defect artifacts to precisely locate corresponding defectsUS20060280358 *Jun 29, 2004Dec 14, 2006Akio IshikawaPattern comparison inspection method and pattern comparison inspection deviceJP2002181729A Title not availableJP2003222598A Title not availableJPH0915302A Title not availableJPH06258244A Title not availableJPH09184711A Title not availableJPH09211080A Title not available* Cited by examinerNon-Patent CitationsReference1Japan patent application No. 2005-255009, Examination Report dated Oct. 24, 2006.Referenced byCiting PatentFiling datePublication dateApplicantTitleUS8264534 *Dec 4, 2008Sep 11, 2012Vistec Semiconductor Systems GmbhMethod and apparatus for processing the image data of the surface of a wafer recorded by at least one cameraUS20090153657 *Dec 4, 2008Jun 18, 2009Vistec Semiconductor Systems GmbhMethod and apparatus for processing the image of the surface of a wafer recorded by at least one camera* Cited by examinerClassifications U.S. Classification382/145, 438/14International ClassificationG01R31/26, G06K9/00Cooperative ClassificationG06T2207/30141, G06T7/001, G06T7/0044, G06T7/0008European ClassificationG06T7/00P1E, G06T7/00B1P, G06T7/00B1RLegal EventsDateCodeEventDescriptionAug 29, 2012FPAYFee paymentYear of fee payment: 4Nov 10, 2005ASAssignmentOwner name: OMRON CORPORATION, JAPANFree format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNORS:MURAKAMI, KIYOSHI;ASANO, YASUNORI;KINOSHITA, TAKASHI;ANDOTHERS;REEL/FRAME:017226/0438Effective date: 20051025RotateOriginal ImageGoogle Home - Sitemap - USPTO Bulk Downloads - Privacy Policy - Terms of Service - About Google Patents - Send FeedbackData provided by IFI CLAIMS Patent Services