Integrated NI Tools Bring Unmatched Scalability to Flextronics Display Inspection

Author(s):
Bryan Moore - Flextronics

Industry:
Telecommunications

Products:
Vision, LabVIEW

The Challenge:
Performing efficient and cost-effective LCD inspection tasks on cellular phones with high-density displays

The Solution:
Developing a system using LabVIEW, NI-IMAQ and Vision software and the NI-1424 digital image acquisition board with a dual-head digital camera set-up

Introduction
At Flextronics, we were looking for a vision solution to inspect the display panels on cell phones. Our project required that we inspect two screens - one on the front displaying numbers, address books, etc., and a smaller screen on the back to display the caller identification number. We also had to inspect the displays covered with protective tape.

Our goals were twofold - we were required to find a solution for the inspection process; we also wanted to learn how to perform machine vision so we could be self-reliant for future projects. We looked at a handful of vendors for help. Most offered complete turnkey solutions, though inspection with the protective tape was still a challenge. These companies could come into our plant and implement the complete solution for us. This was a very expensive option, and it failed to meet one of our key criteria - that we learn how to perform vision. If our testing needs were to change or expand, we would have to contact the consultants in order to scale the system to our new needs.

Using Off-the-Shelf Tools to Customize the System
National Instruments, however, offered us the guidance to learn how to incorporate vision into our test programs. Because we were already strong LabVIEW users, we could easily program the NI vision tools to accomplish the needs of our current display inspection project for cell phones. As new requirements arose, we wanted to define the necessary functionality, rather than going back to the vendor to redefine the parameters. In addition to LabVIEW, we used NI Vision software and the NI-1424 vision board. We also used a Duncan Technology camera, with a dual-head digital camera setup to inspect the two screens on the cell phone.

Our background in LabVIEW coupled with the excellent support from National Instrument enabled us to get a huge head start on getting the software up and running. Because we were new to the area of vision inspection, NI technical resources played a key role for us, especially for start-up support. With NI’s help, we developed in-house expertise in machine vision system design and development.

Scaling to Future Needs
A key to selecting NI tools was the fact that National Instruments offered us the capability to solve very simplistic machine vision events and later scale our vision solution to inspect even the most complicated events by easily integrating other data acquisition and control needs.
We also could use our new in-house experts to scale the NI products to meet the future and changing needs of this inspection process, as well as satisfying the requirements of future projects.

Lowering Our Cost
With our NI solution, we have software and hardware products that we can scale to future needs through our newly acquired expertise, and the tools fit within our budget. Using the NI solution, we significantly cut our costs. Over the long term, we have a lower cost of ownership because we can scale to future needs and can configure the testers right off the shelf.

We now have inside expertise in machine vision, and we can go back to the same resources, both internal and at NI, to develop applications that once were beyond our area of experience. As we move to our newer projects, we can use our current tools with minimal additional products to reduce costs.

For more information, contact:

 Bryan Moore

Senior Software Test Engineer

Flextronics

2090 Fortune Dr.

San Jose, CA 95131

Tel: (408)576-7989

E-mail: bryan.moore@flextronics.com

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