PCBA · Automated visual inspection for assembled boards
AI PCBA inspection from one reference golden board
Show VisionRepo a reference golden board (a good board). It maps every component, then inspects every produced board against it and shows the evidence behind every call. No programming, no CAD, no training period. Any camera you already have.
Free trial · No new hardware · Results in minutes
The problem
Why PCB assembly inspection fails exactly where it matters
~80%
is the detection ceiling of a trained human inspector, and it decays over the shift.1
10×
is what the same defect costs at each stage it escapes downstream.2
Missing parts, wrong parts, flipped parts, bad joints: every one of them is visible on the board the moment it leaves the line. What is missing is not the information. It is an inspector who reads it with first-hour attention, on every board.
Rule-based AOI trades one burden for another. It is consistent at hour eight, but a new board design that deviates by a pixel becomes a false call, every NPI costs days of programming, and on a high-mix, low-volume line the setup often outlasts the run.
| Criterion | Manual inspection | Rule-based AOI | VisionRepo PCBA |
|---|---|---|---|
| Judgment: catches what a person would | Yes | Partly | Yes |
| Consistent at hour eight of the shift | No | Yes | Yes |
| Setup per product | None | Days of programming | One reference golden board |
| Tolerates harmless variation | Yes | No | Yes |
| Explains every verdict with evidence | Partly | No | Yes |
Judgment: catches what a person would
- Manual inspection
- Yes
- Rule-based AOI
- Partly
- VisionRepo PCBA
- Yes
Consistent at hour eight of the shift
- Manual inspection
- No
- Rule-based AOI
- Yes
- VisionRepo PCBA
- Yes
Setup per product
- Manual inspection
- None
- Rule-based AOI
- Days of programming
- VisionRepo PCBA
- One reference golden board
Tolerates harmless variation
- Manual inspection
- Yes
- Rule-based AOI
- No
- VisionRepo PCBA
- Yes
Explains every verdict with evidence
- Manual inspection
- Partly
- Rule-based AOI
- No
- VisionRepo PCBA
- Yes
1. See, J.E., Visual Inspection: A Review of the Literature, Sandia National Laboratories, SAND2012-8590 (2012). 2. Davis, B., The Economics of Automatic Testing, McGraw-Hill (1982).
The method
Golden board inspection: show it one good board. That is the spec.
Capture
One image of a reference golden board (good board). That is the entire setup: no programming, no CAD, no training period.
Mapped
Components are found and fingerprinted automatically and classed by type. On the golden shown here: 38 components.
Inspecting
Every produced board is compared against the golden, component by component, from then on. Add more goldens over time and tolerance to harmless variation grows.
What it catches
PCBA defect detection with the golden next to the board
Each pair below shows the golden reference beside the produced board at the same window. Every defect here was flagged by the platform in the run shown further down.
Under the hood
Extract. Compare. The operator sees normal or anomalous.
Behind every verdict, VisionRepo extracts what a trained inspector would read.
IC · U_S1 · golden
Reference
- Designator
- U_S1
- Manufacturer
- Samsung (SAMSUNG wordmark)
- Part marking
- S5P_CORE01 (rev 1.2)
- Trace codes
- Lot 2245 K6D2G122 · 22826T122
- Package
- 100-lead QFP, gullwing leads, pin-1 dot bottom-left
Normal · matches spec
IC · U_S1 · board
Board 03
- Designator
- U_S1
- Manufacturer
- Renesync — differs from golden
- Part marking
- RN9142-QF — differs from golden
- Trace codes
- Lot 1837 M2 · Malaysia
- Package
- 100-lead QFP, seated correctly, pin-1 dot bottom-left
Anomalous · wrong part
Resistor · R2 · band attributes
- Golden
- Gold, orange, black, brown — decodes 10 kΩ ±5%
- Board
- Gold, black, brown, band missing — decodes not 10 kΩ
Anomalous · wrong value
The customer-facing result stays one label per component, normal or anomalous, with this evidence one click behind it.
A complete run
All boards in, every seeded defect out
4
Boards inspected
1 / 3
Pass / defective
16
Components flagged
0
Processing failures
Inspection results, as the operator sees them: one label per component, confidence per verdict, golden and board crops side by side, filters by status, component and defect type.
Fits the line
A software layer, not a new machine
On the line you run today, at any changeover.
Your camera
Any capture you already have. A stock DSLR is enough: every image on this page was shot on one.
VisionRepo PCBA
Component-level verdicts with evidence and confidence, against your reference golden board.
Your systems
API and export into MES, traceability and review. No customer data held between boards.
Same conveyor, same fixtures · Existing equipment kept · One golden serves the run
Built for every team that owns board quality
High-mix inspection without the programming tax
- One reference golden board per product, at every changeover
- Fewer false calls at the review station; harmless variation is tolerated
- Evidence your OEM customers can audit, exported to MES
PCBA inspection questions, answered
Get started
Bring one good board. Leave with a running line.
One reference golden board. Your boards, inspected, with evidence.