Success or failure of an IC product hinges on the quality of molding process which protects chips from the harm done by external force and moisture. Defects such as cracks, dilapidations or voids may be embedding on the molding surface while a chip was being molded. Human inspection often neglects a very tiny crack or a low-contrast void. Hence an automatic optical inspection system for the integrated circuit (IC) molding surface cannot be over emphasized. The proposed system is composed of a charged coupled device, a coaxial light, a back light and a motion control unit. Based on the characteristics of statistical textures of the molding surface, a series of digital image processing is carried out, including normalization, shrinking, segmenting and Fourier based image restoration and defect identification. Training of the parameter associated with defect inspection algorithm is also discussed. Results of the experiment suggest that the inspection system works effectively with high accuracy rate of 94.2 %, contributing to the inspection quality of IC molding surface.
