Apparatus for laser cutting wiring in accordance with a measured size of the wiring

An apparatus for cutting a wiring on a printed wiring board with a laser beam, comprising:

• a laser oscillator emitting said laser beam along a main optical path including a convergent optical system;
• multiaxis positioning means for holding said printed wiring board virtually orthogonal to said main optical path and changing three-dimensional coordinates of said printed wiring board;
• X-Y axis adjustment means for adjusting the two-dimensional coordinates, of said three-dimensional coordinates, perpendicular to said main optical path in accordance with position information supplied from a host computer such that said laser beam is directed on to a wiring to be cut;
• optical means for optically measuring a size of said wiring to be cut;
• and
• control means for controlling beam parameters of said laser beam in accordance with said size measured by said optical means such that said wiring to be cut is cut most suitably;
• wherein said optical means measures a width and a thickness of said wiring to be cut, and said optical means measures said size by a method of optical cutting, said optical means including
• beam projecting means for outputting a slender strip-formed prove beam for optically cutting said wiring to be cut along its length, and
• image pickup means for picking up an image of said probe beam directed in to said wiring to be cut from an angle different from the angle of the beam projection made by said beam projecting means, said image pickup means having an optical bandpass filter with a passband including the wavelength of said prove beam disposed in confrontation with said wiring to be cut, a television camera for picking up said image through said optical bandpass filter, a focusing lens for forming said image on the image pickup plane of said television camera, and a cylindrical lens disposed between said optical bandpass filter and said focusing lens for expanding the component of said image in the direction of the thickness of said wiring to be cut.

An apparatus for cutting a wiring on a printed wiring board with a laser beam, comprising:

• a laser oscillator emitting said laser beam along a main optical path including a convergent optical system;
• multiaxis positioning means for holding said printed wiring board virtually orthogonal to said main optical path and changing three-dimensional coordinates of said printed wiring board;
• X-y axis adjustment means for adjusting the two-dimensional coordinates, of said three-dimensional coordinates, perpendicular to said main optical path in accordance with position information supplied from a host computer such that said laser beam is directed on to a wiring to be cut;
• optical means for optically measuring a size, including a width and a thickness, of said wiring to be cut by a method of optical cutting, said optical means including beam projecting means for outputting a slender strip-formed prove beam for optically cutting said wiring to be cut along its length, and image pickup means for picking up an image of said probe beam directed in to said wiring to be cut from an angle different from the angle of the beam protection made by said beam projecting means;
• control means for controlling beam parameters of said laser beam in accordance with said size measured by said optical means such that said wiring to be cut is cut most suitably;
• a two-dimensional image memory for storing said image picked up by said image pickup means;
• and
• angle correction means for adjusting the angle of rotation of said image so that, when two orthogonal axes in said two-dimensional image memory are denoted by x-axis and y-axis, the direction of the thickness of said wiring to be cut in said image coincides with said y-axis, including means for binarizing stored information in said two-dimensional image memory to "1" corresponding to said image and "0" corresponding to the others, means for obtaining a distribution of occurrences frequency of "1" in the direction of said y-axis for each step of the angle of rotation of said image, and means for setting a reference angle which is the angle of rotation of said image providing a maximum value of said occurrence frequency.

An apparatus for cutting a wiring on a printed wiring board with a laser beam, comprising:

• a laser oscillator emitting said laser beam along a main optical path including a convergent optical system;
• multiaxis positioning means for holding said printed wiring board virtually orthogonal to said main optical path and changing three-dimensional coordinates of said printed wiring board;
• X-Y axis adjustment means for adjusting the two-dimensional coordinates, of said three-dimensional coordinates, perpendicular to said main optical path in accordance with position information supplied from a host computer such that said laser beam is directed on to a wiring to be cut;
• optical means for optically measuring a size of said wiring to be cut;
• control means for controlling beam parameters of said laser beam in accordance with said size measured by said optical means such that said wiring to be cut is cut most suitably;
• means for identifying a mark in a predetermined form provided in a predetermined position on said printed wiring board,
• correction means for correcting said two-dimensional coordinates adjusted by said X-Y axis adjustment means, according to said identified mark, including a first and a second half mirror disposed in said main optical path, a beam source for irradiating said wiring to be cut through said first half mirror, and image pickup means for obtaining an image of said wiring to be cut through said second half mirror;
• wherein the state of remainder of said wiring to be cut after said laser beam is emitted from said laser oscillator is further checked according to said image obtained by said image pickup means.