MARCH 25--Robotic Vision Systems Inc. (RVSI; Canton, MA; www.rvsi.com) unveiled the newest member of its WS-series of bumped-wafer inspection products, the WS-2510--a system specifically designed for the demanding inspection requirements of wafers that use gold-bump technology. Wafer bumping is a rapidly growing segment of the semiconductor industry. Bumped wafers are used in flip-chip packaging technologies to produce smaller, faster, and more-complex integrated circuits. Most wafers are bumped using solder, but a fast-growing subsegment of the market uses gold bumps, which typically are an order-of-magnitude smaller than solder ones.
"The WS-2510 contains a specialized sensor designed for gold-bump inspection. These bumps are typically 10 to 25 μm, versus the more than 100-μm size of typical solder bumps," said Frank L. Jacovino, general manager of wafer-level products at the electronics division of RVSI in Hauppauge, NY. "In the WS-2510, we've developed a system capable of taking repeatable measurements to submicron accuracy at production speeds.
Gold-bump wafers are used primarily in the manufacture of LCD drivers and contain many die, each with an array of microscopic gold bumps that serve as an electrical interconnection from the die to the thin-film circuits on the glass-panel displays. The functionality of the final assembled LCD panel is directly related to the dimensional integrity of the gold bumps, and the WS 2510 ensures the quality of these gold bumps at throughput speeds that permit inspection of each and every bump. As it only takes one defective bump to potentially result in a LCD panel malfunction, it is imperative that all bumps be inspected to fully guarantee operation.
The WS-2510, available immediately, measures the height, length, and width of every bump and also detects bridged bumps, missing and extra bumps, cracks, scratches, nodules, pits, and foreign material between the bumps.
