Taiwan is renowned for its semiconductor industry; however, most of the equipments for manufacturing, inspection, and packaging are imported. To enhance the technology for domestic enterprises, the Instrument Technology Research Center (ITRC) of National Applied Research Laboratories (NARLabs) is dedicated to delivering customized automated optical inspection (AOI) systems to semiconductor and LED industries. ITRC cooperates with the leading semiconductor equipment manufacturer Gallant Micromachining Co., Ltd. (GMM) and the leading LED producer EPISTAR Corporation to develop chip defect inspection systems. ITRC's technology significantly improves production yield rates and efficiency. Representing a new phase in Taiwan's semiconductor industry, ITRC, GMM, and EPISTAR held a press conference on these two outstanding research projects on September 22, 2015. The achievement is a considerable benefit for Taiwan's semiconductor and LED industries.

The more popular smart wearable display devices are, the higher the accuracy and efficiency standards that integrated circuit (IC) inspections must meet. The market for AOI equipment is anticipated to undergo steady growth. The product value of intelligent imaging analysis systems is anticipated to reach US$39 billion by 2020.

Optomechanical system integration: AOI for defects on the backside of chips
After IC fabrication, package testing and dicing are performed. Current chip sorters in the market can detect ICs that pass package testing and continue with the packaging process. However, most of them cannot detect chip backside defects during the sorting process. Defective products may occur when chip backsides have defects or when dicing occurs during cutting, which reduce the product quality and reliability in addition to increasing the packaging cost.

Several chip defect inspection systems have been made available in the market; however, they can only perform image acquisition with pauses because of li