2D and 3D Bumped Wafer Inspection

Dr. Carl Smets , ICOS Vision Systems

Together with the amount of bumped wafers growing rapidly, also the bump sizes and pitch are decreasing fast. This puts a high strain on overall process yield and quality and as a consequence the requirements for automated inspection are increasing.

With the WI-3000, ICOS Vision Systems presents a complete solution for combined 2D and 3D bumped wafer inspection which is very accurate and extremely fast, making 100% 3D inspection of bumped wafers a reality.

At the heart of the system is a Confocal sensor, coupled to a High speed Intelligent Camera. All required measurement items like bump height, coplanarity, XY offset, bump width, bump pitch and 2D errors like bump bridging can be found reliably with an accuracy and repeatability of 1 µm or better. Speed will exceed 60 WPH for full 2D and 3D inspection of 200 mm bumped wafers for standard bump sizes. All commonly used gold and solder bump sizes can be measured.

A separate handler module can dock an inspection tool at either side, in this way doubling the throughput. The tool can inspect whole wafers as well as wafers on film frames and hoop rings, without need for hardware changeover.

With its unparalleled speed and accuracy, the WI-3000 will allow for FULL 2D and 3D bump and surface inspection as opposed to sampling inspection as is currently the case in the industry.

Carl Smets, PhD, is Director Research and Development at ICOS Vision Systems where he is responsible for the development of the Wafer Inspection Product Line. Before joining the company in 1992 he was leading a development team at HCS Vision Technology in the Netherlands.

He earned a Masters Degree in Physics and a Masters degree in Artificial Intelligence at the Katholieke Universiteit of Leuven, Belgium. He also received a PhD in Physics from the same university.