# Integrated Circuit Bonding Distance Inspection via Hierarchical Measurement Structure

## TL;DR

This paper introduces a new automated method for measuring bonding distances in integrated circuits using a hierarchical structure to improve detection accuracy.

## Contribution

A novel hierarchical measurement structure is proposed for accurate bonding distance inspection in complex chip images.

## Key findings

- A multi-layer convolution approach effectively locates bonding regions and removes background noise.
- A multi-branch network improves detection of small bonding spots and gold wire segmentation.
- Four gold wire distribution models enable accurate bonding spot matching and distance measurement.

## Abstract

Bonding distance is defined by the projected distance on a substrate plane between two solder points of a bonding wire, which can directly affect the morphology of the bonding wire and the performance between internal components of the chip. For the inspection of the bonding distance, it is necessary to accurately recognize gold wires and solder points within the complex imagery of the chip. However, bonding wires at arbitrary angles and small-sized solder points are densely distributed across the complex background of bonding images. These characteristics pose challenges for conventional image detection and deep learning methods to effectively recognize and measure the bonding distances. In this paper, we present a novel method to measure bonding distance using a hierarchical measurement structure. First, we employ an image acquisition device to capture surface images of integrated circuits and use multi-layer convolution to coarsely locate the bonding region and remove redundant background. Second, we apply a multi-branch wire bonding inspection network for detecting bonding spots and segmenting gold wire. This network includes a fine location branch that utilizes low-level features to enhance detection accuracy for small bonding spots and a gold wire segmentation branch that incorporates an edge branch to effectively extract edge information. Finally, we use the bonding distance measurement module to develop four types of gold wire distribution models for bonding spot matching. Together, these modules create a fully automated method for measuring bonding distances in integrated circuits. The effectiveness of the proposed modules and overall framework has been validated through comprehensive experiments.