The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 16, 1997
Filed:
Jun. 27, 1996
Steven J Bilodeau, Setauket, NY (US);
William E Yonescu, Smithtown, NY (US);
Robotic Vision Systems, Inc., Hauppauge, NY (US);
Abstract
A scanning system inspects elements, such as ICs, continuously by positioning a second tray containing elements to be inspected adjacent a scan bed in which the elements in a first tray are being scanned. Immediately upon completion of scanning of elements in the first tray, scanning begins on elements in the second tray. During scanning of the second tray, the first tray is off loaded, and a third tray replaces the first tray. The cycle is repealed continuously. Since transport and scanning operations take place simultaneously, transport delay is reduced substantially, as compared to the serial system of the prior art. When the transport, positioning, and off loading operations consume substantially less time than the scanning operation, a fresh tray of elements always awaits scanning upon completion of scanning of elements in a tray. In one embodiment, first and second scan beds are elevated above a conveyor, thereby permitting incoming and outgoing trays to pass on the conveyor below the scan beds without interference with the trays elevated in the scan beds. A replace operation, either on-line or off-line, replaces defective elements detected in the scanned trays with known-good elements, whereby the output of the apparatus is 100 percent known-good elements. An embodiment in which transport and positioning takes longer than the scanning operation, thereby requiring a delay in scanning, is disclosed. This latter embodiment, although it does not provide continuous scanning, nevertheless reduces cycle time by virtue of parallel operation of scanning and transport functions.