| CPC G01R 31/308 (2013.01) [H04N 25/48 (2023.01); H04N 25/768 (2023.01)] | 12 Claims |

|
1. An apparatus for inspecting electrical circuits comprising:
a scanner including:
at least one multiline Time Delay Integration (TDI) sensor having multiple parallel lines of sensor pixels, each of said parallel lines extending along a line axis, said multiple lines of sensor pixels being separated from each other by a separation distance along a scanning axis that is perpendicular to said line axis, each of said sensor pixels having a sensor pixel dimension along said scanning axis;
a linear displacer providing mutual displacement of said multiline TDI sensor and an electrical circuit to be inspected along said scanning axis; and
scanning optics directing light reflected from said electrical circuit to said sensor pixels, said scanning optics defining a projection of each of said sensor pixels onto said electrical circuit, wherein said projection defines an area on the electrical circuit from which light reaches each of said sensor pixels, said projection having a sensor pixel projection dimension along said scanning axis;
said multiline TDI sensor and said linear displacer being operative such that a distance of mutual displacement of said multiline TDI sensor and said electrical circuit to be inspected along said scanning axis during acquisition of each line thereof is greater than said sensor pixel projection dimension along said scanning axis, and an image generator configured to construct an image from composite output pixels of the multiline TDI sensor, wherein said image comprises a plurality of said composite output pixels each having a composite image collection profile along said scanning axis, said composite image collection profile having a dimension along said scanning axis which is greater than said sensor pixel projection dimension.
|