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Sensofar S neox - Optical PCB measurement

Enhancing PCB quality control with rapid versatile measurement on a nanoscale

Manufacturing PCBs can differ greatly depending on the purpose and design of the board. However, common elements apply to all PCBs that are critical for their correct function. Sensofar software is optimised for analysing copper circuits, vias and pads.

Overview

Sensofar’s high-quality non-contact 3D optical surface profilers are utilised throughout the consumer electronics market.

These include:

  • Semiconductors
  • Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs)
  • Display industries
  • Surface mount technology
  • Chemical Mechanical Processing

Measure critical PCB dimensions including:

  • Metal components in PCBs
  • PCB packaging capability
  • Welding opening pad
  • Copper trace thickness under dry film
  • Bump characterisation 
  • Solder mask welding
  • Laser groove
  • Copper wire adhesion
  • Gold foil

PCB Applications

PCB Applications

PCB metal component fringe protection

Metal Component in PCB

Metal component for an electrical appliance.

There are a number of critical dimensions that are checked in every piece manufactured.
Sensofar analysis software takes a manual approach which compliments the characterisation of this type of sample.

SensoVIEW Analysis Software

PCB Packaging Compatibility

After the PCB manufacturing process, the flatness of the board is checked to ensure that the PCB fits well in its packaging.

Flatness is characterised by the Sz parameter, calculated in SensoVIEW by default.

SensoVIEW Analysis Software

See where the highest and lowest points are located.

SensoVIEW’s profiling options include the possibility to draw profiles with the highest and lowest points.

PCB packaging topography
Welding opening pads

Welding Opening Pad

Sensofar have developed a specific plugin to recognise the individual pads or in any particular pattern.

Pads Plugin

Copper Trace Thickness Under Dry Film

Interferometry and Confocal thickness are vital technologies for this type of application.

Both technologies are used to see which one images better through the layer, plus in addition to verify and correct the results when the layer affects the measured height.

FTrace plugin can automatically detect traces in different directions.
All the plugins in SensoPRO have the possibility to see the tendency of values per each parameter.

FTrace Plugin

Bump characterisation

Bump Characterisation

These structures are the base of the pins that the chip will have. Their position, height and diameter will determine the bump-pin union.

The Bump plugin can analyse up to 14.500 bumps.

Bump Plugin

Solder Mask Welding

Solder Mask layers are usually applied to printed circuit boards (PCB) as protective layers.

Openings for connections can have multiple connectors. The Solder mask plugin can easily recognise the different configurations and analyse the key parameters.

Solder Mask Plugin

Solder mask welding
Laser groove

Laser Groove

Laser cutting is one of the main front-end processes in the semiconductors field.

In the case of PCBs, it is used for fabricating bias and channels of communication that are characterised (barbs, depth, etc.).

Groove profile plugin has been developed to analyse different structures generated with laser methodology.

Groove Plugin

Copper Wire Adhesion

The surface finish of materials impacts the material’s behaviour.

In this image, the interesting property is the adhesion of copper with a conductive material used in the welding process.

Understanding which roughness parameter differentiates two sets of samples with different adhesion can help the user to correlate specific roughness parameters with adhesion and this can be done with the Surface texture plugin of SensoPRO.

Surface Texture Plugin

Copper wire adhesion
Gold foil topography

Gold Foil

High-end microelectronics use gold foil as this metal has a better performance than other materials used in this type of application.

Defects on the surface or roughness values different than the optimal can seriously affect the top layers.

With Sensofar’s high-powered Surface texture plugin, it can register tolerancing in order to know which parts don’t comply.

Surface Texture Plugin

Product Range

Product Range

3D optical surface profiler using 4 microscope technologies in 1.

Five Axis 3D optical surface profiler with 4 microscope technologies in 1 for full 3D measurement.

Surface metrology for large sample areas up to 300x300mm.

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