Cabinet X-ray and CT device SCIOX SMT
X-ray device the SCIOX SMT is right choice for X-ray check of electronics devices. The main field of X-ray use in electronics production is the check of BGA soldering, measurement of the Voids in BGA balls or check of thermal pads soldering. X-ray can help you to setup the whole soldering process, select correct heating profile and check the correct placement of all components.
With use of the product manipulator you can easily change the magnification of the object. Thanks to online stream you can very fast inspect whole PCB even if it is magnified.
For case, you will need a faster detector, a higher X-ray energy or a higher resolution, we offer the variable solution. The X-ray devices SCIOX can be upgraded in the future. Not only the software, but hardware as well.
The soldering check is not possible to do only with AOI or other optical systems. We are in the future now and the movement brought the miniaturized high power IO packages. It does not have all the pins around the chip, but in most of cases it has pads under the chip. In today’s check, you need to see under the chips to check the soldering. Even the small void on BGA ball can cause the problems in the products. For example, small void on the RAM memory will affect the communication speed between the RAM and the MPU/CPU. Please do not wait until the problems will occurs. You can have a tool to prevent it.
Most often fields of use of X-ray in electronics production
Voids in the solder joints
The voids (small air/flux bubbles) is the main cause of the problems in BGA soldering and thermal pads soldering. This problem is caused by wrong temperature profile. The profile is very hard to setup, because usually you have some tiny BGA next to choke or some connector which will totally change the heat dissipation on the board. Very big problem is that the component can be soldered but not well. It will maybe work, when you do the electrical test, but the joint is very fragile and it can crack after short term. In some cases, it can change the impedance of the joint and it will cause the problems in high frequency applications.
Shortcuts of the joints
There is no way how to check the shortcuts under the BGA or LGA. The classic packages, it is easy to inspect with optical systems, but on BGA you cannot do that. The shortcut can totally destroy the whole device when you put it on the electrical test.
The thermal pads check
Miniaturization of all electronic components brought the different system of head dissipation from the package. We talk about the thermal pads under the components. It is very need to check it with the X-ray because in most of cases the joint under the pad is not connected well. It is very important to have uniform joint. When the joint is not uniform, the component will heat much more on one side then on the other and it will totally decrease the lifetime of the component.
PCB analysis
The difficulty of the PCB is growing again with the pressure on the miniaturization. It brings lots of problems, especially in the correct connection inside of the PCB layers. You can easily inspect the PCB with the X-ray and CT check. It can also help in the reverse engineering. With the CT scanner, you can see every layer without others, so it is very easy the “read” whole electronic circuit.
Inside defects of the components
There are some fields, where the detailed inspection is very appropriate: aerospace and automotive. In some cases, the component can be broken inside. The most common is the problem with wire bonds (the connection between the pads and the chip) or the component is falsified. With the X-ray, you can see the inside and check the correct shape of the component.
Research and development
Research and development are the fields where the X-ray and CT are very good helpers. You can use when you do the basal research or you are preparing the prototype of some device. In according to our experiences, it can decrease the prototyping time in range of the whole weeks. Even the specific components such as BGA, LGA, Thermal pads you can solder by hand and check on the X-ray, instead producing it in SMT company, which will usually take several weeks to do that.
If you are interested in more information, please read our articles about this topics.
Our technologies for X-Ray SCIOX SMT solution
X-ray tube
The X-ray tube is one of the most important component for the X-ray device. It has biggest influence for the quality of captured images and possible magnification. In the SMT field the magnification is very important. The most of components in the SMT is very small and the defects can measure only few microns. X-ray tubes for the SMT field must have as small focal spot as possible. For the SMT is also important variable power and anode voltage (ideal is from 40kV). Some of our tubes can offer up to 240kV. This voltage is very good for bigger components such as chokes or transformers.
The selected X-ray tube has big influence for the quality of the whole X-ray device and thus the use of the device. X-ray tube is one of the most expensive components in the whole devices, so it is very important to think carefully about the right selection. We can offer two kinds three kinds of the X-ray tubes in our devices:
80kV X-ray tube with up to 50µm focal spot is suitable for some basic analysis of soldering. It can be used in application where the inspection of thermal pads is most often inspection. This X-ray source can provide magnification up to 6 times.
120kV X-ray tube with up to 50µm focal spot is suitable for some basic analysis of soldering. It can be used in application where the inspection of thermal pads is most often inspection. This X-ray source can provide magnification up to 6 times. It is suitable for components with metal shields.
If you will need some X-ray device, please contact us and our specialists will help you to find right X-ray tube for your application
Detector
The High-sensitivity X-ray detector can offer very good image quality even the low power X-ray tube (the microfocal spot tube is low power) is used. It can prove high resolution with short scanning time. It is caused by use of CMOS technology, which can provide great sensitivity with low noise output. The Flat panel detectors is large area CMOS image detector which is similar to classic cameras, but with special layer on the chip which will convert X-ray radiation to visible light. These detectors can provide up to 300fps. So, you can see the X-ray image of the objects in the real-time. In the combination of the manipulator, you can easily inspect whole object.
The resolution of the detector can be separated to two groups: spatial and energy resolution.
The spatial resolution is defined by the physical size of the detection elements. For example, we use the flat panels with the 99 µm or 49.5 µm detection elements size. It will say, that the object of 198µm can be detected (the spatial resolution is twice bigger than the detection element size).
The energy resolution is caused by technology of the detector. The CMOS detectors what we use has excellent energy resolution. The basic rule says, the bigger detection elements you have, the better energy resolution you can achieve. With the bigger energy resolution, you can recognize the smaller energy differences in the image. With combination with suitable display you can see some small differences in the material structure such as cracks or small voids. The CMOS detectors, what we use, are very suitable for these applications, because it provides the best energy resolution.
The correct selection of the X-ray detector is not easy and it is very important for the final application. Similar to the X-ray tube it is very expensive component in the whole X-ray device. Our specialist can help you to find the best solution for your application, so please feel free to ask for the help.
Manipulator
In the SCIOX SMT there is the object manipulator for provide easy, fast and detailed inspection of your product. You can easily move the product inside of X-ray not only in X, Y, Z coordinates, but you can rotate it around the axis as well. The combination with the real-time flat panel detector will allows to see the X-ray image during the manipulation of the object. When you will move with object closer to the X-ray source you can magnify the object up to 2500x (based on kind of X-ray tube).
When you want to create the dataset for the X-ray Computed tomography (CT) you will need to use this manipulator. It can rotate the object around the axis during the recording of the data. Then, with use of the Volume Graphics Studio you can reconstruct the 3D model of the object. For example, it can allows to separate the layers of PCB or do the detailed analysis of the BGA connection between the PCB and the ball.
If you are looking for the X-ray device for inspection in SMT field, please feel free to ask us. Our specialists will help you to find right solution for you.
Contact information
Lucie Svobodova