A PCB image segmentation model based on rotational X-ray computed laminography imaging.

BACKGROUND: The rapid development of industrialization in printed circuit board (PCB) warrants more complexity and integrity, which entails an essential procedure of PCB inspection. X-ray computed laminography (CL) enables inspection of arbitrary regions for large-sized flat objects with high resolution. PCB inspection based on CL imaging is worthy of exploration.

OBJECTIVE: This work aims to extract PCB circuit layer information based on CL imaging through image segmentation technique.

METHODS: In this work, an effective and applicable segmentation model for PCB CL images is established for the first time. The model comprises two components, with one integrating edge diffusion and l0 smoothing to filter CL images with aliasing artifacts, and the other being the fuzzy energy-based active contour model driven by local pre-fitting energy to segment the filtered images.

RESULT: The proposed model is able to suppress aliasing artifacts in the PCB CL images and has good performance on images of different circuit layers.

CONCLUSIONS: Results of the simulation experiment reveal that the method is capable of accurate segmentation under ideal scanning condition. Testing of different PCBs and comparison of different segmentation methods authenticate the applicability and superiority of the model.