A hybrid defect detection for in-tray semiconductor chip

The requirements for high-speed and high-precision defect inspection in semiconductor chip are growing rapidly because of the complicated surface in semiconductor chip. Due to manufacturing tolerance of IC tray, the misalignment from the chip positioning shift and rotation are always presented for the application of in-tray inspection. In the beginning, this paper focuses on compensating the positioning shift and rotation of in-tray chip by using the proposed image alignment algorithm before the defect detection. After applying the process of image alignment, a hybrid approach of defect detection is applied to detect the defects of in-tray chip. Furthermore, this hybrid approach simultaneously detects the defects based on its surface by the following two categories: (1) the complicated surface in the circuit and (2) the primitive surface on the bump. As mentioned above, the image alignment strategy and the adaptive image difference method are applied in the detection of complicated surface, and the design-rule strategy is adapted to detect the defects on bumps. Finally, the experimental results show that the proposed image alignment strategy and hybrid approach can accurately and rapidly inspect the defects of in-tray chip. This approach is superior to the traditional template matching in defect detection. In addition, the computational complexity can be efficiently reduced by the proposed hybrid strategy.