Device and methods for inspecting soldered connections

Abstract

A device for inspecting solder connections between a component and a substrate or between two components or substrates, wherein the component is disposed upon the surface of the substrate, the device including an image receiving unit. An image transmitting device, the image transmitting device including a first end and a second end, the first end coupled to the image receiving unit. A tip assembly removably coupled to the second end of the image transmitting device, the tip assembly further including a mirror and an image receiving aperture, the tip assembly configured to transmit an image of the solder connections received by the mirror, through the image transmitting device, to the image receiving unit, and an illumination device, the illumination device including a light source, at least one light transmitting device, and at least one light emitting aperture disposed adjacent the image receiving aperture, the light emitting aperture directed towards the solder connections to be inspected.

Description

technical field [0001] The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for inspecting solder joints, in particular, the apparatus of the present invention enables visual inspection of hidden solder joints (such as solder joints used to connect integrated circuits to printed circuit boards) checking. Background technique [0002] With the development of integrated circuit (ICs) technology, in addition to the increasing density of integrated circuits used in electronic equipment, surface-mounted integrated circuits, ball grid arrays (BGAs), chip-scale packaging (CSPS) and flip-chip (FCs) ) technology has also been greatly developed, so that it is becoming more and more difficult to visually inspect the integrity of the solder joint between the chip lead and the solder joint on the printed circuit board. In addition, the number of solder joints on each chip is increasing, while the size of the chip is getting smaller. Although some surface-mounted integrated circuits...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

A drawback of this canon-style device is that the image reflected by the image transmission unit contains "interference", which will reduce the quality of the image

Another drawback of this Canon-type device is that the field of view of the lens is too narrow to visually inspect the upper and lower welds, and to be able to visually observe the upper and lower welds, the lens must be moved away from the weld The position of the point to provide a larger field of view, but this will reduce the clarity of the image

Another flaw of this Canon setup is that it uses a prism to reflect the image of the solder joint, we all know: prisms are easily damaged, so they need to be protected

Finally, these prisms are very expensive and thus will add to the overall price of the inspection unit and also require specially trained technicians to repair and / or maintain such prism components

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