CAItech Announces High Speed 3D Inspection Machine

San Jose, CA, Sept. 25, 2003 - CAItech, a Silicon Valley manufacturer of 3D scanning and inspection machines, introduced a 3-axis inspection machine to inspect planar electronics parts.  The Model 50C can inspect parts having a maximum dimension of 50 mm (2").  Unlike other CAItech inspection machines, the Model 50C uses a "point" range sensor.  The sensor beam is focused at a single point that is moved by two servo mirrors.  The mirrors move the beam to different surfaces of the part, measuring the 3-space location of the part's surface 800 times a second.  Each point is accurate to +/- 10 microns.  The Model 50C is the most accurate CAItech inspection machine for small planar parts.

The two mirrors reflect the sensing beam onto different regions of the part in much the same way that a laser beam is moved during laser marking.  Computers controlling the angle of each mirror can move the beam's location over a range of 50 mm in each direction.  In addition, the part is mounted on a rotary table, allowing the part to be scanned on all sides.

When the sensing beam reflects from the part being scanned, the reflected light is gathered by a lens and split into two beams, one of which is polarized with respect to the other.  The two beams are optically combined to produce an "interference pattern" that is measured by a high speed camera 800 times a second.  The pattern is directly related to the distance to the part surface at that instant.

CAItech President Dr. Shawn Buckley said, "The sensor is 10 times more sensitive than others we have worked with.  Parts with shiny surfaces such as machined parts, black surfaces and angled surfaces are measured much more accurately than we could ever do in the past".

CAItech motion software directs the mirrors to move the beam over the part, getting a set of data points called a "datacloud" from the part.  Each point of the datacloud represents a point on the part's surface.  Software converts the datacloud into various 3D surface primitives such as planes, holes, cylinders, spheres and so forth.  Finally the part's dimensions are calculated from the surface primitives.

Applications for the Model 50C include small planar, tubular or prismatic parts.   It can move its tilt angle from vertical for planar parts, to 45 degrees for prismatic parts to horizontal for tubular parts.  CAItech is working with Silicon Valley electronics companies to use the Model 50C to inspect adhesive beads and coplanarity of leads on IC packages.

Computer Aided Inspection Technologies, Inc. is a privately held California corporation manufacturing next-generation automated inspection equipment. Established in 1997, CAItech is located in San Jose, CA in the heart of California's Silicon Valley electronics industry.
CAItech can be reached at (408) 226-0642, or on the web at www.caitech.com .