Defects inspection of the solder bumps using self reference technology in active thermography

• We proposed a method for reducing the impact of emissivity unevenness and heating non-uniformity.
• The method using the self reference technology is based on the source distribution image.
• Three thermograms captured right after heat pulse are averaged to create SDI.
• For the missing bump the summation of thermal difference is no more than 14 K.
• It is effective using the method to identify the defects in active infrared test.

With the decrease of solder bumps in dimension and pitch, defects inspection of the solder bumps become more difficult. A nondestructive detection system based on the active thermography has been developed for solder bumps inspection. However, heating non-uniformities and emissivity differences may impede the defects recognition. In this paper, we propose a method using a self reference technology based on a source distribution image (SDI) to eliminate the influence of unevenness in emissivity values and heating power distribution. Three thermograms captured right after the heat pulse are averaged to create the SDI. Then the SDI is subtracted from the original thermograms, and we get the thermal contrast images, in which eight points on the edge of each hot spot are selected as the feature points for the corresponding bump. Thermal difference between the feature points and the central point are adopted to quantify the thermal behaviors of the solder bumps, by which the missing bump is distinguished from the reference bumps. The results show that it is effective using the method to eliminate the impacts of emissivity unevenness and heating non-uniformities on defects identification in the active infrared test.