The 'LASOL' Project comprises the development, evaluation and appraisal of a novel automated inspection system specifically designed for large area solder joints ( i.e. joints greater than 2mm2 in size ). Current inspection systems are usually optimized for very small joints (e.g. surface mount), based on grayscale  imaging. these systems can check for the existence of a joint, but information on its condition or quality is inadequate.

The LASOL system uses a non-destructive method based on the light sectional principle to optically inspect the joints in 3 dimentions. With this method, the Lasol consortium intends to achieve

• establishment of generic relations between geometric structures  and quality functions ( e.g. fluid and gas tightness or mechanical strength )
• 100% testing of industrial production batches
• definition of generic rules for process control using geometric measurement data
• set-up and validation of an industrial strength pre-competitive prototype for automated inspection of Large Solder joints