Trevor Gailbraith, Editor-in-Chief of Global SMT & Packaging catches up with Sean Langbridge, CyberOptics European Sales Director

TG: Welcome to CyberOptics. Sean, good to see you.

SL: Trevor, good to see you as always.

TG: I have to say, CyberOptics’ equipment is some of the best-engineered equipment in the business. It’s always nice to look inside one of these. This is the SQ3000™ and one of the great things about it is its versatility. Tell us a little bit about some of its capabilities.

SL: Certainly Trevor. So the SQ3000 that we are now marketing is what we call the MRS-Enabled SQ3000 3D Multi-functional Inspection and Measurement machine. The reason it is multi-functional is we can support many different applications, with a common system and common software set-up. For example, this machine is carrying our standard sensor, the 3D Multi-Reflection Suppression (MRS) 10-micron pixel sensor. We can support 3D SPI, 3D AOI pre-and-post reflow, 3D AOI full measurement capability, and what we now call CMM (Coordinate Measurement Machine), so it can measure plastic, metal parts – anything physically that we can fit into the machine, we can measure it.

Global SMT & Packaging Interview with Sean Langbridge at SMT Connect

Trevor Gailbraith, Editor-in-Chief of Global SMT & Packaging catches up with Sean Langbridge, CyberOptics European Sales Director

TG: Welcome to CyberOptics. Sean, good to see you.

SL: Trevor, good to see you as always.

TG: I have to say, CyberOptics’ equipment is some of the best-engineered equipment in the business. It’s always nice to look inside one of these. This is the SQ3000™ and one of the great things about it is its versatility. Tell us a little bit about some of its capabilities.

SL: Certainly Trevor. So the SQ3000 that we are now marketing is what we call the MRS-Enabled SQ3000 3D Multi-functional Inspection and Measurement machine. The reason it is multi-functional is we can support many different applications, with a common system and common software set-up. For example, this machine is carrying our standard sensor, the 3D Multi-Reflection Suppression (MRS) 10-micron pixel sensor. We can support 3D SPI, 3D AOI pre-and-post reflow, 3D AOI full measurement capability, and what we now call CMM (Coordinate Measurement Machine), so it can measure plastic, metal parts – anything physically that we can fit into the machine, we can measure it.

TG: What about coatings?

SL: Coatings if we can physically see it, we can measure it, so yes.

TG: And of course, the strength of CyberOptics has always been in your sensor. You say this one here has an accuracy of +/-10 micron. I believe some in the semiconductor market want something even better than that.

SL: Well, the pixel resolution is at 10 micron. The height resolution is half a micron, so we can actually measure or detect the difference in a half a micron in height, so it is very precise and as you just pointed out, we are looking at opportunities in what we call packaging inspection or back-end semiconductor with the system. We also have a higher resolution sensor at 7 micron, the Ultra-high resolution MRS sensor, which we are using on some of our CMM applications. There we are measuring CPUs for example, processors, packages, wire bonds. We can do very fine wire bonds very accurately.

TG: You are following that track – the merging of the technologies, from SMT and in to back-end packaging. Let’s look at the size of the board and the assembly that you can measure. What is your maximum board size and what is your maximum Z height?

SL: Well on this one, speaking about the sensor capability, the distance from the PCB, or the clearance, is 50mm. The 3D measurement, so the measurement that we are able to take from board level or substrate level, to a maximum height is 24mm in full 3D, so it is quite high. So we have a very high range – we can do board level very small features, 0201 metric or even smaller, very accurately or very tall connectors, tall electrolytics on the same board, so this plays into the flexibility of the system.

TG: Absolutely, so again as I said, the engineering is always very high using linear motors, which gives you good accuracy that way as well, and speed of course. And no moving parts in the head.

SL: That’s been one of CyberOptics’ main differentiators, and I believe advantages over many years, starting with our first SPI machine in the mid-90s, we were the first company to develop a no-moving parts in the sensor, so a fixed optics, and it’s still the same today in terms of no calibration, no moving parts and very little or zero maintenance at all for the sensor.

TG: So it is very easy to come and set-up at a show like this.

SL: Absolutely Trevor. 4 screws and that’s it.

TG: Great. Thanks for giving us an update about what is happening here at CyberOptics. Nice to talk to you.

SL: Good to see you as always.