Rudolph Technologies Inc., Wilmington, Mass., introduces its Clearfind technology, which can detect organic defects that are difficult or impossible to see with conventional white-light imaging techniques.
Organic contaminants are often the root cause of field failures, which occur after the material has been exposed to operating conditions for extended periods. Rudolph has been actively collaborating with several key customers to fully understand inspection challenges and how the new technology addresses them. The company plans to incorporate Clearfind technology in its upcoming defect inspection systems for advanced packaging applications.
Clearfind technology highlights organic residues on bumps and bond pads, or at the bottoms of vias, so that they are easy to detect. On metals, it eliminates the high-contrast graininess seen under conventional illumination, resulting in an obvious defect signal against a featureless background.
This same graininess in conventional imaging can also cause false positives, which are especially costly at this stage of the process, where the sunk cost of unnecessarily rejected good product is high. Finally, Clearfind technology readily detects shorts and opens in metal lines when inspected with an underlying organic layer.
Rudolph believes these capabilities will significantly increase the ability to detect process and manufacturing related issues earlier in the process. This will result in a significant yield increase, which equates to millions of dollars in savings, especially for processes utilizing a known-good die. Rudolph’s customers see this as a critical technology to improve quality by avoiding the high costs of replacement and penalties.
