Silicon's luster dimming for vision firms?

Inspection plays a key role in the production of semiconductors, checking for defects and assisting in wafer alignment for a variety of production and test tasks. For example, Suss Microtec's MicroAlign technology for its ProbeShield automated analytical-probing test environment targets test pads measuring less than 40x40 microns—pads that are too small to permit the use of a cantilevered probe card, because needle scrub lengths can exceed pad dimensions. A vertical probe card offers an alternative but comes with its own limitation: It prevents a clear view through the card to facilitate wafer alignment.

Machine vision plays a key role in ReAlign technology, which automates tests occurring over repeated cycles at varying temperatures while compensating for the thermal drift that could cause pad-to-probe-tip misalignment. Courtesy of Suss Microtec.

Other examples of inspection's role include wafer-bump and wire-bond inspection (see "Keep your eye on the metal bumps" and "X-ray inspection—not all black or white" in our June and April issues, respectively). Nevertheless, the semiconductor industry could become less attractive to machine-vision component vendors. According to a recent Automated Imaging Association study of the North American machine-vision market, the semiconductor industry retains the largest slice of the machine-vision-applications pie, but that slice has been shrinking while revenue in other areas—notably pharmaceuticals—is growing.

In an interview, Dr. Robert J. Shillman, Cognex chairman and CEO, characterized semiconductor and electronics business as slow: "It's not going down, that's the good news. The bad news is it's at a fairly low level, although we are still able to make money even at that level now." Such sluggishness, he said, has prompted Cognex to increasingly focus on end users instead of OEMs.

Of course, there's a fine line between end-user and OEM products. Philip Colet, sales and marketing VP for Dalsa Coreco, said his company nominally divides its offerings into OEM and end-user segments but that there is considerable overlap. You can be sure makers of optics, lighting, frame grabbers, cameras, and image processors aren't going to ignore the semiconductor industry, and many vendors who pursued end users at the Vision Show West in May (p. 15) will be out in force at this month's Semicon West wooing semiconductor OEMs.

The AIA's study predicts growth in the semiconductor machine-vision market through 2009. Perhaps the results of an increased end-user emphasis by machine-vision vendors will be an explosion of easy-to-use vision components that OEMs can more readily integrate into their increasingly sophisticated semiconductor test and inspection equipment.