CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
This chapter will discuss the background of machine vision with Optical Character
Recognition; problem statement, objective and scope of the project.
1.1 Motivation
Machine vision provided important advantage in term of cost and precision. It has been proven successful in controlled environment such as factory production line to ensure
repeatability and reproducibility in good quality control, and can run continuously without rest.
However, the existing sorting machine in Silterra manufacturing plant is used as a wafer tracking process to scan and sort the wafer base on the scribed number and this can help the
workers to determine the wafer position. Unfortunately, the sorting machine is very expensive around RM600 000.Therefore, this causes the limited number of sorting machine available in
the production line. Furthermore, the large quantities of wafer produced in short period with good quality which
can saving cost and time. Due to limited number of sorting machine available in the production line, this will take a long time when large quantities of wafer need to process, and if any system
breakdown will causes loss to the company in both cost and time. Figure 1.1 shows the existing tracking process in Silterra Sdn. Bhd.
Figure 1.1: The existing tracking process in Silterra Sdn. Bhd.
For this reason, a low cost vision system design with Optical Character Recognition is created to increase the number of sorting machine in industry, especially dealing with high
volume of wafer produced. Figure 1.2 shows after implement the low cost vision system design.
Figure 1.2: After implement the proposed low cost vision system
1.2 Problem Statement
As a semiconductor manufacturing company, Silterra Sdn. Bhd produces microchip and the wafer processing are one of the existing process in the production. The existing sorting machine
are used to scan the scribed number on wafer and store data to an Excel file for wafer tracking process to determine the position of the wafer. But the machine is very expensive around RM
600,000 and causes limited number of machine available in the manufacturing plant, therefore the time taken of the scanning process will be long and if any breakdown will directly cost the
company in both money and time.
1.3 Objective
