Active Infrared Thermography for Visualizing Subsurface Micro Voids in an Epoxy Molding Compound

Abstract

This paper presents an automated subsurface micro void detection technique based on pulsed infrared thermography for inspecting epoxy molding compounds (EMC) used in electronic device packaging. Subsurface micro voids are first detected and visualized by extracting a lock-in amplitude image from raw thermal images. Binary imaging follows to achieve better visualization of subsurface micro voids. A median filter is then applied for removing sparse noise components. The performance of the proposed technique is tested using 36 EMC samples, which have subsurface (below 150 mu m similar to 300 mu m from the inspection surface) micro voids (150 mu m similar to 300 mu m in diameter). The experimental results show that the subsurface micro voids can be successfully detected without causing any damage to the EMC samples, making it suitable for automated online inspection.