(Photo above) Acoustic and X-ray imaging now at Nordson Sonoscan
Elk Grove Village, Illinois – As part of Nordson’s recent acquisition of Sonoscan, a Nordson Dage X-ray tool was recently added to the C-SAM acoustic micro imaging tools at Nordson Sonoscan– enabling non-destructive, reliable detection, imaging, and analysis of defects in electronic components and similar items.
Ultrasound penetrates most production materials, including dense metals, but not air or porous materials. X-ray penetrates air and porous materials in addition to most production materials but may not penetrate some dense metal layers.
X-ray images are created by transmitting X-rays through the sample and detecting the shadow image it casts. Higher density materials such as solder cast a darker shadow while lower density regions such as voids cast a lighter shadow, making it easy to see features such as voiding. Scattering of X-rays is typically not observed.
Ultrasound is partly reflected and partly transmitted at interfaces between most materials, but is almost entirely reflected by the air-to-solid interface at voids and other gaps, and there is no transmission, even if the void or gap is only a fraction of a micron thick. This property of ultrasound makes imaging thin delaminations easy, even in samples containing dense metals.
The wires in devices scatter ultrasound and make imaging difficult, but X-ray’s higher resolution brings out the details.
The ability to move samples between the two side-by-side and complementary nondestructive tools has already demonstrated superior results for SonoLab customers.
Nordson Sonoscan is complemented by the Nordson Dage, Nordson Yestech, and Nordson Matrix divisions, offering a full suite of test and inspection products and solutions to customers.