Hitachi High-tech Instruments Company, Ltd.

Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd.

Sanyo High Technology Co., Ltd.

Akihiro Kawai

Kazuyoshi Oyama

Akio Watanabe

Makio Kameda

Tetsuji Ono

Kazuyoshi Ieizumi

Akira Aoki

Yoshinao Usui

Manabu Okamoto

Hideaki Fukushima

Jun Asai

Shigeru Kuribara

Takashi Yoshii

The invention is directed to an unfailing pickup operation of an electronic component from a component storage portion at a seam of storage tapes connected even using a connection tape and prevention of reduction in a pickup rate of an electronic component. A CPU sends a feeding command to a component feeding unit to perform a component feeding operation or the like. Then, when the CPU judges that a connection tape reaches a pickup position, the CPU drives an X axis drive motor and a Y axis drive motor to move a board recognition camera to the pickup position of the feeding unit, the camera takes an image of a storage portion of a storage tape, and a recognition processing device performs recognition processing. A correction value based on a result of this recognition processing is stored in a RAM, and a suction nozzle is moved taking this correction value into account and lowers to pick up an electronic component.

Electronic component mounting apparatus

A method of mounting electronic components on a printed board includes providing a storage tape including a first portion and a second portion that are connected by a connection tape and containing electronic components stored therein, advancing the storage tape so that an electronic component is advanced to a component pickup position where electronic components are picked up by a suction nozzle, picking up the advanced electronic component at the component pickup position by the suction nozzle, and mounting the picked up electronic component on a printed board. The advancing of the storage tape, the picking up of the electronic component and the mounting of the electronic component are repeated, and the component pickup position is adjusted when the second portion of the storage tape is advanced to the component pickup position.

Electronic component mounting method

This invention provides an electronic component mounting apparatus which can detects an electronic component held by a suction nozzle without fail after a mounting operation of electronic components on a printed board and perform various processes in a case where the electronic component is held by the suction nozzle. The electronic component mounting apparatus has a line sensor unit for detecting presence or absence and a posture of an electronic component, a component recognition camera for recognizing a position of the electronic component held by suction by the suction nozzle, and a CPU for controlling the suction nozzle to discharge the electronic component in an exhaust box and controlling to skip this suction nozzle in a case where the line sensor unit does not detect the electronic component held by the suction nozzle when the line sensor unit performs detection whether or not the electronic component is held by the suction nozzle after a mounting operation of the electronic component held by the suction nozzle on a printed board, but in a case where the component recognition camera detects the electronic component held by the suction nozzle.

An electronic component mounting apparatus enables a reliable decision of abnormal suction of a component even when the difference between the width and the height of the component is small. When the difference between the thickness of the electronic component detected by a sensor and the data on the thickness stored in the RAM is within the tolerance, a CPU judges that the component is held by a suction nozzle in a normal posture and executes a normal processing control. Then an image of the electronic component is captured by a recognition camera, and a recognition processing is made by an image processing unit to measure the geometry of the component. The CPU, then, judges whether the size of the component is within tolerance or not. When both X-dimension and Y-dimension of the component measured by the image processing unit are within the tolerance, the Y-dimension measured by the image processing unit and the thickness detected by the sensor are compared and the component is judged normal when the Y-dimension is larger.

A recognition camera images an electronic component, and a recognition processing unit performs recognition processing of the electronic component based on the result of the imaging. The recognition processing is performed using the component data of group 1 data, group 2 data, group 3 data, and group 4 data that are stored for the images taken in a random access memory (RAM). The group 1 data is used for lead inspection (for inspecting positioning error and bending of the lead), the group 2 data and the group 3 data are used for calculating amounts of adjustment in the X and Y directions, and the group 4 data is used for calculating the amount of adjustment in the &thgr; direction. This makes it possible to mount accurately components with pins and extrusions extruded from the molding, such as connectors, such that the pins and extrusions are accurately engaged with the holes formed in a print board.

Growing community of inventors

Isesaki, Japan

Akihiro Kawai