Illumination system for wire bonding inspection

A novel lighting system was devised for 3D defect inspection in the wire bonding process. Gold wires of 20 microm in diameter were bonded to connect the integrated circuit (IC) chip with the substrate. Bonding wire defects can be classified as 2D type and 3D type. The 2D-type defects include missed, shifted, or shorted wires. These defects can be inspected from a 2D top-view image of the wire. The 3D-type bonding wire defects are sagging wires, and are difficult to inspect from a 2D top-view image. A structured lighting system was designed and developed to facilitate all 2D-type and 3D-type defect inspection. The devised lighting system can be programmed to turn the structured LEDs on or off independently. Experiments show that the devised illumination system is effective for wire bonding inspection and will be valuable for further applications.