Scanner technology cuts PCB inspection time to just a minute

Citation

(1999), "Scanner technology cuts PCB inspection time to just a minute", Soldering & Surface Mount Technology, Vol. 11 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/ssmt.1999.21911cad.020

Scanner technology cuts PCB inspection time to just a minute

Scanner technology cuts PCB inspection time to just a minute

Keywords Scientific Generics, Inspection, Printed circuit boards

Scientific Generics, the Cambridge-based technology and business consultancy, has developed a new system for inspecting surface-mount printed-circuit boards. The semi-automatic Scanspection system cuts typical inspection times from ten minutes or more for a manual check to just one minute.

Scanspection will be marketed as "Vu-Point" worldwide under licence by DiagnoSYS, a leading British manufacturer and distributor of test and inspection systems for the electronics industry. Likely applications include low- and medium-volume PCB production lines, goods inwards quality control, and staff training.

The system is designed to work using standard image scanning technology, featuring a unique adaptor to take the unit under test which is then aligned automatically. The software compares the scanned image of the test sample with a stored image of a perfect PCB. Because the image is stored digitally, the system offers a large amount of functionality compared with a conventional video or microscope approach.

"The beauty of the system is its low initial cost, which will be in the region of £15,000, and the huge savings in time and operating costs it offers", said John Barrott, the project team leader at Scientific Generics. "Until now, the cheapest digital semiautomatic systems cost around £20,000 and fully automatic, high-volume machines are beyond the reach of all but the largest PCB producers and users.

"The only alternative for the smaller user has been manual inspection under a microscope, which typically takes an operator upwards of ten minutes. We've harnessed the power of affordable desktop computing to reduce that time dramatically."

Scientific Generics retains the intellectual property rights to the technology but has granted an exclusive worldwide licence to DiagnoSYS.