Patent ID: 8657181

Claim:
A wedge bonder comprising: a wedge for bonding a wire to surfaces to form an electrical interconnection therebetween; a cleaning device operative to clean the wedge; a positioning device to which the wedge is mounted, the positioning device being operative to move the wedge to the cleaning device for cleaning; and an imaging device operative to capture an image of a bonding portion of the wedge, wherein: the imaging device comprises a camera and a beam-splitter, the positioning device is operative to move the wedge to a first position relative to the beam splitter to allow the camera to produce an image of a bottom view of the bonding portion of the wedge, and to a second position relative to the beam splitter to allow the camera to produce an image of a side view of the bonding portion of the wedge, and the bonding portion of the wedge at the first position is positioned above the beam-splitter and perpendicularly to a line-of-view of the camera, to allow the camera to produce the image of the bottom view of the bonding portion of the wedge.