Insights and news
Why Shin Shou's logo is a seal
In Chinese culture, stamping a seal means entering a contract and taking responsibility. We built that meaning into our brand: every machine we ship is a promise bearing our mark.
Multi-light imaging: making scratches and dents on metal parts visible
Metal surfaces reflect strongly, and a single light often hides defects in the glare. We capture several images under different lighting angles and combine them into an image that is easier to judge.
Silicon Chip Visual Inspection System: both sides in one pass, directly on blue tape
A 25 MP industrial camera at 1.5 μm/pixel detects defects above 3 μm. Available in monochrome and color, with no die removal or flipping.
Tech note: camera resolution and field of view — choose right without overspending or slowing the line
Detection capability is roughly 3–5 times the resolution; doubling resolution means four times the images. A table of fields of view for 5 MP to 25 MP cameras at different resolutions, plus trade-offs from real projects.
Tech note: assembly checks and large parts — solder joints, nuts and washers, coil insulation
Missing, broken and unsoldered joints all show up in images; the hard part is component leads with varying shapes. Nuts, screw torque marks and part numbers on control panels can be recognised. Large coils need rotation and lifting mechanics first.
Inspecting Si dies on blue tape: the five hardest problems and the results we delivered
No die removal, no flipping: dark cracks, gold bumps, discoloration and broken frames inspected directly on blue tape. Four years and ten sample rounds, from 150 mil down to 5 mil.
Tech note: barcode and character recognition — AI, trained fonts or smart cameras?
Inkjet dates, laser marks, label barcodes and wire-sleeve numbers each have different pitfalls. Across four projects, 2D codes were almost always readable, while the smallest 1D barcode read only about 60% of the time.
Braided wire inspection: catching 54 μm broken strands on a 1.8 m wide line running at 2 m/s
From a colour-recognition test to an in-line inspection plan: chromaticity separates green and yellow braids, and two 33K line-scan cameras in a staggered layout cover the 1,800 mm line width.
Optical lens inspection: when 2D cannot see a shallow scratch, use a 3D laser
Scratches, bright spots, bubbles, coating colour, black spots, spray marks and encapsulation defects on lens elements were almost all detected in 2D. For the shallowest scratches, a 3D line laser works clearly better. Decentration is checked by fitting the circle centre under coaxial light.
Wafer visual inspection: higher resolution is not always better — 5–9 μm is the production sweet spot
With a 25 MP camera, edge chipping, cracks, contamination and scratches on wafers were all detected — but 2.5 μm resolution far exceeds the visual-inspection spec and scan time becomes the bottleneck.
Tech note: detection rate vs cycle time — one station or two? Let the data decide
On the same metal-part samples, two stations with nine images caught 6/9 scratches in about 3 s; one station with four images caught 4/9 in about 1.8 s. Both caught 100% of contamination and black spots. Which should you choose?
Tech note: automatic probe counting — the box material decides the lighting
Transparent boxes count most reliably with backlight; opaque black boxes must be opened and lit from the front; black boxes with a clear film only work with external coaxial light. Key findings for four box types.
Lead frame inspection: one scan, five images — separating scratches and dents from glare
Lead frames are highly reflective and full of texture, so a single light causes false calls. With an 8K line-scan camera and multi-light compositing, defects of 0.03–0.05 mm are detected at 10 μm resolution.
Life-science consumables: 12 defect types on purification columns, and presence and colour on reagent strips
Transparent plastics, membranes, gaskets and reagent zones are slow and inconsistent to check by eye. At about 17 μm with a 5 MP camera, 11 of 12 defect types on purification columns were detected.
Tech note: molded plastic parts — which defects can a 2D camera not see?
Flash, pits, spots and broken hooks are detectable in 2D. Sink marks show almost no difference in flat images; with 3D laser measurement, a 33–40 μm height difference becomes obvious.
Tech note: AI cell counting — a usable model from a single original image
Five crops from one image, each rotated ten times, gave 50 training samples; 30 images with 500 annotations trained an object-detection model. Classic image processing counted 1,637 cells in under 6 seconds.
Tech note: why shallow scratches on blasted surfaces are hard — a sharper camera can mean more false calls
Heat spreaders have a sand-blasted texture. Moving from 50 μm to 34.5 μm made images sharper — and the blasting pattern too. Five test rounds from 2021 to 2022 show the trade-offs between lighting, camera and judgement.
Tech note: backlight, coaxial or ring light — which light for which defect?
Missing OLED traces show best in backlight, crushed traces in coaxial light; probe counting and ceramic thickness rely on backlight; bright and dark defects on UV tape use coaxial plus bottom light. Four cases that explain the basics of lighting.