• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.106-114
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• 2017

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 $150{\mu}m{\sim}300{\mu}m$ from the inspection surface) micro voids ($150{\mu}m{\sim}300{\mu}m$ 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.