Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Shigeru Eguchi

Teruaki Nishinaka

A pickup head 11 has a lower surface with absorbing holes 9 for picking up a plurality of soldering balls 1 from a soldering ball reservoir 15 by suction force of vacuum. Pickup head 11 mounts these soldering balls 1 on electrodes 5 formed on substrate 4 placed on a conveyor 8. Then, soldering balls 1 are transported below a camera 21. Camera 21 monitors the upper surface of substrate 4 to check whether each of electrodes 5 mounts a soldering ball 1. An absorbing head 31 mounts a supplemental soldering ball 1 on a faulty electrode 5 which lacks a soldering ball 1 to be mounted thereon when this faulty electrode 5 is detected by camera 21. After all of electrodes 5 mount soldering balls 1, substrate 4 is sent by conveyor 8 to a furnace 40 where each soldering ball 1 is heated and melted to form soldering bumps 1' on electrodes 5.

Method and apparatus for mounting soldering balls onto electrodes of a

A mounting apparatus for mounting an electronic component on a circuit board, which apparatus has a pickup head with a suction nozzle arranged to be movable on a horizontal plane and further movable vertically with respect to the horizontal plane, thereby picking up and carrying the electronic component to the circuit board. The apparatus is also equipped with a laser monitoring section for monitoring the electronic component picked up by the pickup head. The laser monitoring section includes a laser illuminating device for emitting a laser light beam to the electronic component placed at a monitoring position and for receiving light reflected from the electronic component to obtain information indicative of a state of the electronic component. The laser illuminating device is encased within a cover device arranged to be openable and closable to receive the picked-up electronic component and cover the electronic component when reaching the monitoring position. The cover device has a dome-like configuration and comprises two portions symmetrically arranged to be movable horizontally to be separated from each other and brought close to each other so that the dome-like cover device is openable and closable. This arrangement can prevent the laser light beam from the laser illuminating device from damaging the apparatus operator.

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Fukuoka, Japan

Shigeru Eguchi