Circuits Assembly Online Magazine - DEK's HawkEye Post-Print Verification System

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Enabled by an innovative inspection methodology, DEK's (dek.com) HawkEye post-print verification system permits 100% board inspection at the line beat rate.

Rather than relying on the data-rich, quantitative routines and still-image analysis of traditional 2-D inspection, HawkEye rapidly scans the board as a series of stripes and collects a tightly defined set of monochrome image data. These results are then compared with the preset, user-defined limits of acceptability, with the verification tool determining if the board is ready to move to the next process step.

The system can be set to verify 100% of deposits on the board or only certain areas of the board. Users can adjust total verification cycle time to maximize system value within the line beat rate.

Traditional inspection routines are, relatively speaking, somewhat slow - taking, on average, 28 mm² per second to inspect a standard SMT assembly. HawkEye accelerates inspection time exponentially. It comes in two versions to accommodate different manufacturing requirements: HawkEye 400 verifies deposits at a rate of 400 mm²/sec., while HawkEye 1200 operates at a rate of 1200 mm²/sec.

The system is easy-to-use and involves very little operator training. Using the Instinctiv user interface to set up the verification areas, operators simply draw a box around the entire board or the specific area they want to inspect. Instinctiv then displays both area scan times and total scan times to assist with process optimization. Area scan time is dependent upon the area size and the pitch of the components contained within the defined area. Component pitch is then used to determine the scan speed of the system.

Simple graphical reporting, including warning and error regions, of the last pasted area is then delivered to the operator during each print cycle. If the system stops on an alarm point, the operator can review the failed area or easily browse around the entire board. The pads in error are shown graphically using paste painting on the camera that aligns with the color scheme on the reporting graph.

Instinctiv delivers easy-to-understand graphical reporting during each print cycle and deposit levels are reported only as graphics, with no numerical values, to provide a simple, high-speed fully automated Go/No Go measure of deposit quality. It is designed for any production environment.

HawkEye is available as an option on the DEK Galaxy, Europa, Horizon 01i, Horizon 02i and Horizon 03i printer platforms, which all run the Instinctiv and ISCAN machine control architecture.