For each bonding process, parameters such as ultrasonic amplitude, force, time, or the movement sequence for setting up the bonding bridges must be programmed in advance. The camera’s image feed is also used when creating these programs. For example, you can drag a wire in the live image and change its position. The axes can also be adjusted by clicking on the image.
“The driver shows very stable runtime behavior,” says Enthammer. “The easy-to-program API and the plug-and-play functions with running software convinced us. This is because there are many different use cases for our systems that can be implemented with the API without any problems. Our machines can be equipped with up to seven different bond heads. A different IDS camera can be integrated in each one.”
Outlook
The wire bonders from F&S Bondtec ensure stable connections in semiconductor production. With the help of integrated image processing, the manufacturing quality and productivity of the systems can be further increased and rejects avoided. At the same time, the cameras make work easier for the operators.
Wire bonders are available with various degrees of automation. With manual devices, each bond wire must be positioned manually before the corresponding connections can be made. Semi-automatic machines position the wire after the first bond to create a wire bridge. Fully automatic machines use a structure-recognition system to determine the position of the chips. Here, all wire bridge production is completely automatic. The operator only has to change the wire or tool on the bonder occasionally, and take care of loading and unloading.
From one to seven industrial cameras are used per system. Depending on the type, these can be the particularly compact and cost-effective uEye XCP models. At just 29 x 29 x 17 mm, they are the smallest housed IDS cameras with C-mounts and have a completely enclosed die-cast zinc housing. Their screw-type USB micro-B connection and compatibility with the vision standard (U3V/GenICam) simplify integration.
The small design of the models and the large number of different sensors were important criteria when selecting the camera, as was the low thermal expansion. However, the free IDS peak software development kit, with all the programming interfaces and software tools required for operating and programming the cameras, was also crucial. Easy-to-understand functions ensure an intuitive programming experience, and quick and simple commissioning of the industrial cameras.
F&S Bondtec uses image processing with IDS industrial cameras for various tasks in the production process, especially in the semi-automatic machines of the 56i series and the automatic wire bonders of the 86 series. “Our wire bonds connect previously placed microchips or other components with different contact points on printed circuit boards and breathe life into the chips,” says Johann Enthammer, managing director and CTO at F&S Bondtec. “However, positional inaccuracies of the components can occur during the upstream processes. Our machines have to determine these positional inaccuracies using the IDS camera image and our own image recognition software, and update the wire bond positions accordingly.”
Image processing is used by the semi-automatic 56i series wire bonders.
Bond circles
Heavy wire on aluminum
Visual assessments of bond connections
F&S Bondtec also uses uEye CP cameras. These tiny powerhouses offer maximum functionality with extensive pixel preprocessing and are also perfect for multicamera systems, thanks to the internal 120 MB image memory for buffering image sequences. Users can choose from a large number of modern CMOS sensors. Another feature is a compact housing that measures just 29 x 29 x 29 mm.
| Camera
On the software side, the Austrian company relies on a specially developed image recognition library that works with position/pixel mapping, grayscale recognition, and edge detection.
Camera selection |
