iNEMI Reports Results of Survey on Adoption of AI for AOI in the PCB Assembly Process

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iNEMI’s AI Enhancement to AOI for PCBA project recently conducted an industry survey to assess the development of artificial intelligence (AI) and its implementation for automated optical inspection (AOI) in board assembly. The survey was designed to capture the state of technology adoption, determine the most common defect modes and component types evaluated by AOI, and identify key challenges along with lessons learned for future development. 

Survey responses indicate that adoption of AI for AOI in the PCB assembly process is still at an early stage, and there are obvious knowledge and resource gaps to be addressed. For example, not many trained AI models are available to cover various component types and defect modes and, on the personnel side, data scientists are needed to effectively add AI to board assembly processes.

Practical evaluation and industrial references are needed for AOI users to gain confidence and become better prepared for investing in AI technology and integrating it into their manufacturing processes. Based on the input from this survey, the iNEMI project will continue with experimental work to further explore the potential benefits and opportunities that AI could bring for AOI in board assembly — such as detection of true failures — with greater accuracy and in less time, and with a reduction in man-hours, re-inspection and repeated machine program optimization processes.