Photomask control system for printed circuit boards

The photomasks quality control system for printed circuit boards (PCB) is designed to analyze the topological parameters of photomasks (A. Iniucin). It provides:

- interactive formation of the list of reference corrective elements on the reference PCB, specified in the Gerber format;
- automatic search for corrective elements on the tested PCB;
- automatic correction of geometric distortions of the tested PCB raster image by reference points;
- interactive generation of the list of reference aperture elements;
- automatic compliance control of the tested PCB contact pads with the data of the reference PCB;
- formation of lists of defects in contact areas of the tested PCB;
- automatic control of defects in PCB tracks;
- interactive viewing of PCB images specified in raster, Gerber and internal formats.

Scientific and technical groundwork.

The system is implemented under Linux and Windows XP in the C++ programming language. The test image of the PCB obtained via the optical system is used as the object of processing. To find defects, a reference image obtained from a vector PCB description file engaged at the stage of its production is also used.

The system uses the following types of basic inputs.

Bit images of the test PCB in BMP format. The color depth is 24 bits. The image size is limited by the memory size of the computer  on which the system is started.

Gerber-description of the reference PCB.

The system operation result is files containing information about the aperture elements and PCB tracks and their defects on the test PCB in raster and vector form.

The system is implemented as a single pcb executable file into which all software modules are integrated. To work in the Linux environment, the server of the X-window graphics system and the QT graphics library version 3.0 or higher are needed, to work in the Windows XP environment, the Microsoft .NET Framework SDK v.2.0 and software that allows to work with the QT library are required.