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Here is another excellent example of an early
Second Optical Inspection Station representative of the
pre-automation era.
Nevertheless, this machine was advanced for its day and could be
operated quite efficiently. An operator could likely inspect upwards
of 400 units per hour with ease, which is about the upper limit of a
person’s speed without auto-assistance. The system does have a joy
stick in the form of an O ring that the operator could position much
the same as done on a modern day laptop pointer pad.
The unit was labor efficient with nothing but a simple
accept/reject decision required on the part of the operator. If a
reject occurred the operator simply pressed a footswitch and the die
was red-inked. While efficient of time it disallowed rework without
further inspection. Such units were typical of the period when chip
costs were small compared with package costs. Under these
circumstances the chip throwaway cost was negligible relative to the
cost to be absorbed should a defective, but undetected, die be
sealed into an otherwise good package.
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