Machine Vision: End User Solutions
Applications: Semiconductors
Problem - Tape and Reel Packaging Inspection
An Integrated Circuit manufacturer wishes to verify that the chips passing into their tape-and-reel packaging machine are the correct chip and are oriented correctly in the tape 100% of the time. They also wish to monitor the date codes on the chips.
Solution
The vision component of the solution, designed by engineers at Image Labs International, uses Sherlock integrated with a DALSA PCVision frame grabber inside a standard PC interfacing to an analog progressive scan camera, in this case a Sony XC55. As the part passes into the inspection area a beam sensor triggers an image acquisition.
The SmartOCR tool in Sherlock was used to read the part code and date code of each part passing through the system. The easy trainability of the SmartOCR tool was key to the success of the project. The system is required to read a broad range of fonts depending on which parts are being packaged.
The digital I/O feature of the DALSA framegrabber gave Image Labs engineers the ability to control the operation of the packaging machine directly from Sherlock without additional hardware such as PLCs, thus reducing the cost and complexity of the system.
