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AI In Inspection, Metrology, And Test

đź“… Date:

✍️ Authors: Susan Rambo, Ed Sperling

đź”– Topics: AI, machine learning, quality assurance, metrology, nondestructive test

🏭 Vertical: Semiconductor

🏢 Organizations: CyberOptics, Lam Research, Hitachi, FormFactor, NuFlare, Advantest, PDF Solutions, eBeam Initiative, KLA, proteanTecs, Fraunhofer IIS


“The human eye can see things that no amount of machine learning can,” said Subodh Kulkarni, CEO of CyberOptics. “That’s where some of the sophistication is starting to happen now. Our current systems use a primitive kind of AI technology. Once you look at the image, you can see a problem. And our AI machine doesn’t see that. But then you go to the deep learning kind of algorithms, where you have very serious Ph.D.-level people programming one algorithm for a week, and they can detect all those things. But it takes them a week to program those things, which today is not practical.”

That’s beginning to change. “We’re seeing faster deep-learning algorithms that can be more easily programmed,” Kulkarni said. “But the defects also are getting harder to catch by a machine, so there is still a gap. The biggest bang for the buck is not going to come from improving cameras or projectors or any of the equipment that we use to generate optical images. It’s going to be interpreting optical images.”

Read more at Semiconductor Engineering