Rudolph Technologies, Inc., the leader in the high-growth market for back-end macro defect inspection, announced today that a large OSAT (outsourced semiconductor assembly and test) company has placed orders for 14 NSX® Series 320 Inspection Systems. The NSX Systems, scheduled for Q2 2012 installation, will be used for inspection in multiple steps during wafer-level chip-scale packaging (WLCSP) processes.

Nathan Little, vice president and general manager of Rudolph’s Inspection Business, stated, “As confirmed by our strong order book for this new tool, packaging and test houses want to take advantage of the latest-generation inspection equipment to maximize throughput and productivity. The NSX 320 System performs defect inspection, 2D bump metrology and acquires on-the-fly defect images for maximum productivity and flexibility. In addition, WLCSP requires flexibility for handling substrates in a variety of formats while collecting detailed defect and 2D metrology information during the inspection process; the NSX 320 System incorporates whole wafer and film frame handling solutions to address this requirement.”

The NSX 320 System was selected after a competitive evaluation for its high speed and efficient, easy-to-use operating procedures, which delivered the highest productivity and lowest cost-of-ownership of all the tools considered.

"This order is evidence of the leading position the NSX 320 Inspection System has established in the rapidly growing market for back-end inspection,” Little added. “Rudolph’s R&D investments in technology-leading products and the history we have with our back-end customers, gives us the ability to respond to the changing requirements in this important market segment.”

The NSX 320 System provides defect inspection for next-generation packaging processes at full-production throughput. Automatic recipe sharing between modules, smart wafer scheduling and in-use recipe editing make it an extremely efficient and productive inspection tool.