Omron Corporation

Omron Tateisi Electronics Co.

Teruhisa Yotsuya

Kiyoshi Murakami

Masato Ishiba

Jun Kuriyama

Shigeki Kobayashi

Yasuaki Tanimura

Takashi Kinoshita

Hideaki Takahara

Yasunori Asano

Inspection apparatus are used to inspect a substrate as solder is printed, components are mounted and the substrate is heated for a soldering process. Images of the substrate are taken both before and after a production process such as the component mounting process and the soldering process and their differences are extracted. Each component on the substrate may be identified by differentiation and binarization processes and setting conditions for windows are determined corresponding to identified components. Windows are set according to determined setting conditions for inspecting the conditions of the substrate by using image data in the set windows and standard inspection data corresponding to component identification data.

Methods of and apparatus for inspecting substrate

A color image as a combination of color data corresponding to a plural n-number of different hues is processed by extracting a target object from the image and carrying out a specified image processing. A reference image is obtained in the absence of the target object. Color data corresponding to specified less than n of the different hues are considered and difference in the degree of intensity of the considered color data relative to the combination of color data corresponding to n different hues between each pixel of the target image containing the target object and a corresponding pixel on the reference image are extracted. Pixels for which the extracted difference is greater than a specified threshold value and is in a specified direction are extracted. An image area formed by the extracted pixels are recognized as the target object.

Image processing method, substrate inspection method, substrate inspection apparatus and method of generating substrate inspection data

Preparation steps are taken before a substrate with components is inspected and a whole image of a standard substrate is prepared preliminarily and inspection areas are determined for target portions to be inspected on this whole image. At the time of the inspection, a camera is positioned corresponding to a target portion to obtain a target image and an area corresponding to the target image is extracted from the whole image and displacement values of this area are calculated relative to the target image. The setting position of the inspection area is corrected by the calculated displacement values and an inspection area is set on the target image based on the corrected coordinates.

Substrate inspection method and apparatus

A target object has its surface condition inspected by having its image taken from above while being irradiated by red, green and blue light beams at different elevation angles. An inspection area is set on the image and a direction is extracted on the image in which a change appears in the color phase according to the arrangement of the light sources and this extracted direction is compared with a preliminarily registered standard direction to judge the surface condition from the result of this comparison.

Apparatus for surface inspection and method and apparatus for inspecting substrate

For generating an image for inspection of a substrate, a camera is provided above this substrate with an optical axis orienting downward and a plurality of multi-colored light emitting members are set around the optical axis of the camera so as to be within a specified angular range with respect to a target area on the substrate. The camera is operated to generate an image of the target area for inspection while switched-on conditions of these light emitting members are being controlled such that the colors and angles of light illuminating this target area are varied according to a specified kind of the purpose of this inspection.

Method of generating image and illumination device for inspecting substrate

On a production line for component mounting substrate, mutually communicating inspection apparatus are each provided to a different one of production processes that are carried out sequentially such as the solder printing, component mounting and soldering processes. Each inspection apparatus can generate an X-ray transmission image of the substrate. Each inspection apparatus on the downstream side inputs an image from another inspection apparatus on the upstream side and generates a differential image of the inputted image and an X-ray transmission image of the same substrate generated by itself after the production process associated with itself is carried out. The differential image thus generated is used for inspecting the substrate such that the effect of the associated production process can be more accurately inspected.

Inspection method and system for and method of producing component mounting substrate

Apparatus for inspecting printed circuit boards and the like, and method

A printed circuit board inspecting apparatus, in which image data of a packaged circuit board under inspection obtained by picking up the image of the circuit board are processed through predetermined processing procedure for examining packaged states of parts mounted on the packaged cicuit board. The apparatus comprises an imaging unit for picking up the image of a packaged circuit board, a decision unit for deciding the state of the parts mounted on the packaged circuit board, and a visualizing unit for displaying visibly the result of the decision and position of the relevant part in correspondence with each other. The apparatus can further include a land extracting unit for extracting lands from the image obtained through the imaging of the packaged circuit board under inspection, an alarm condition setting unit for setting the condition for generating an alarm, and an alarm generating unit for generating the alarm when the alarm condition is met by the result of decision made by the decision unit.

Apparatus for inspecting packaged electronic device

A packaged substrate inspecting apparatus comprises an imaging device for picking up images of substrates. Land images are extracted from the image of a non-packaged substrate and that of a packaged substrate. On the basis of the shapes of the land extracted from the non-packaged substrate and those of the packaged substrate, positional relationship between a part mounted on the packaged substrate and the land is determined to be utilized for deciding whether the mounted state of the part on the substrate is to be satisfactory or not.

A component-mounted printed circuit board inspecting apparatus comprises an imaging device for picking up images of printed circuit board. Land images are extracted from the image of a bare printed circuit board and that of a component-mounted printed circuit board. On the basis of the shapes of the land extracted from the bare printed circuit board and those of the component-mounted printed circuit board, the positional relationship between a comonent mounted on the printed circuit board and the land thereon is determined. This positional relationship is utilized to decide if the component is mounted properly on the printed circuit board.

An apparatus for automatic inspection of printed circuit board assemblies inspects for the correct presence, positioning, and orientation of component parts mounted on a base printed circuit board by processing an image which is obtained from the base printed circuit board mounted with these component parts. In this method for inputting reference printed circuit board assembly data to such an apparatus, a reference base printed circuit board is prepared with reference component parts mounted on it in which the visual distinction between the reference base printed circuit board and these reference component parts is clear, and then an image is obtained from this reference base printed circuit board assembly, and this image is then processed in order to obtain the reference printed circuit board assembly data. Thereby laborious keying in of such reference printed circuit board assembly data is avoided, and the occurrence of errors is minimized. Optionally, the reference base printed circuit board may be arranged to have low visual brightness, while the reference component parts are arranged to have high visual brightness; or the reverse; or the reference base printed circuit board may be arranged to have substantially different color value from that of the reference component parts.The reference base printed circuit board may be made to be fluorescent, optionally by being coated with a fluorescent film, which may itself be further coated with a layer of transparent adhesive agent, which can further serve for retaining the reference component parts.

Growing community of inventors

Kyoto, Japan

Teruhisa Yotsuya