Tribute to Dr Steven K. Case
happiest. One of his more Manufacturers Association.
recent inventions was the I knew Steve Case in a professional
EPV® inspection technology capacity as an industry colleague who was
for pick and place machines. quiet and inquisitive, but in researching
Steve was further developing this article it became clear that he lived life
this technology at the point of to the full. The private Steve Case had a
his untimely death. passion for fast cars, flying, photography
Today, Cyberoptics and the outdoor life. He was also a practical
operates in the semiconductor joker, as demonstrated by the adjacent
and SMT fields and has a story taken from the tribute page on the
global footprint of offices Cyberoptics website.
and manufacturing facilities. This story, among many others gives you
Around 70% of its business some measure of the depth of Steve Case
is OEM sales of sensors and and the size of the loss to the industry, his
inspection systems that are family and his many work colleagues, both
inside many of the household past and present who loved him dearly.
names we know in this He is survived by his wife, two daughters
industry, which belies the and a grandchild.
strength of the corporation
and how much it is a part of
the fabric of this industry.
During his many years
in the electronics industry,
Steve Case served as president
of the American Electronics
Association and more
The SE 300 100% 3D paste inspection system was launched
recently on the board of the
in 2000.
Surface Mount Equipment
Moving AOI beyond the grey world, continued from page 27
between boards and components. Here, techniques such as Synthetic Imaging, ponent identification with the import of
24-bit colour can make a huge difference. shown in Figure 4c, indicates just how pick and place program data for positional
Take the examples in Figure 1 of greyscale much detection improvement can be location is one example of the manner in
versus 24-bit colour for a simple SMT com- gained when starting with 24-bit colour which AOI machine programming can be
ponent and then a missing component. data. accelerated. Achieving an optimal balance
Verifying the melf diodes in Figure 2 Some of the practical examples shown of true defects and false alarms quickly is
for polarity illustrates the poor contrast in clearly illustrate how the depth of 24-bit the ultimate measure of fast programming.
greyscale that makes for difficult detection processing can contribute significantly to A system that is fast to program but
against the contrast and detection improve- the improvement of detection by helping which overlooks real defects (i.e. permits
ment available with full 24-bit colour. to increase the overall performance. But escapes) is just as useless as one that finds
Another example of the advantage of what about getting to that point in the first all defects and bombards operators with
colour image processing is shown in Figure place? Here again, true colour processing false alarms. In the latter case, operators
3 with the detection of coloured LEDs. power provides a significant difference. will more and more quickly click through
Are those two LEDs red, green, amber, Traditionally, the bane of AOI has the many false alarms they are seeing
blue, clear or some other colour? been the level of expertise and/or the and inevitably begin passing through real
Move out of the grey world and it’s amount of programming time that must defects (operator escapes). Modern AOI
clear that they are red. be invested before the machine can even systems typically offer ongoing learning
Again, looking at melf resistor values begin its inspection task. This means that can gradually provide best perfor-
as in Figures 4a and 4b, greyscale imaging that truly useful new-product inspection mance indicators, and indeed, 24-bit
presents a difficult subject to discern. programs often require too much program- processing can dramatically accelerate that
24-bit colour gives a different depth. ming time for today’s high mix, quick turn artificial intelligence process. But total reli-
These were imaged using normal lighting. manufacturing environments. ‘Useful’ ance upon such an approach not only runs
Introducing additional technologies inspection programs optimise the balance fundamentally against lean manufacturing
like coaxial lighting and data processing between failing to detect true defects principles, it is volume dependent and
(known as escapes) thus totally unsuitable for NPI and other
a. b. c.
while at the same high mix manufacturing situations where
time maintaining an effective AOI implementation can po-
a low false defect tentially deliver the most positive impact.
rate. Combining
Figure 4a. Greyscale melf resistor values. 4b. 24-bit colour. 4c. 24-bit colour with
sophisticated device
synthetic imaging.
libraries for com-
www.globalsmt.net Global SMT & Packaging – August 2009 – 29
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