Apparatus and methods for the inspection of microvias in printed circuit boards

1. An imaging system for inspecting features located at a known inter-feature pitch on portions of a target surface, comprising:

a lens array having a plurality of lenses,

the lenses of the lens array having

an inter-lens pitch and an inter-field of view pitch corresponding to the inter-feature pitch, and

an array of imaging elements having an inter-element pitch corresponding to the inter-feature pitch, whereby

the imaging system images only field of view areas of the target surface containing features.

2. The imaging system for inspecting features located at a known inter-feature pitch on portions of a target surface of claim 1 , further comprising:

an illumination transformation element located between the lens array and the imaging element array for transforming reflected imaging radiation from the field of view areas of the target surface into visible light for imaging by the imaging elements.

3. The imaging system for inspecting features located at a known inter-feature pitch on portions of a target surface of claim 2 , further comprising:

a filtering element located between the lens array and the imaging array to limit wavelengths of at least one of reflected imaging radiation reflected from the target surface and radiation emitted by the illumination transformation element in transforming the reflected imaging radiation from the target surface.

4. The imaging system for inspecting features located at a known inter-feature pitch on portions of a target surface of claim 1 , further comprising:

an image transformation optical element for modifying the characteristics of an image represented by the reflected imaging radiation from the target surface.

5. The imaging system for inspecting features located at a known inter-feature pitch on portions of a target surface of claim 1 , further comprising:

an illumination element for generating illumination radiation for illuminating the field of view areas of the target surface, and

a radiation redirection element located between the imaging array and lens array to receive the illumination radiation from the illumination element and direct the illumination radiation to the target surface and to pass reflected imaging radiation from the target surface to the imaging array.

6. The imaging system for inspecting features located at a known inter-feature pitch on portions of a target surface of claim 1 , further comprising:

a plurality of illumination elements for generating illumination radiation corresponding wavelengths for illuminating the field of view areas of the target surface,

a plurality of radiation redirection elements located between the imaging array and lens array, each radiation redirection element receiving the illumination radiation from at least one corresponding illumination element and directing the received illumination radiation to the target surface and passing reflected imaging radiation of a corresponding wavelength from the target surface to the imaging array.

7. The imaging system for inspecting features located at a known inter-feature pitch on portions of a target surface of claim 1 , wherein:

the lens and imaging element arrays are two dimensional arrays imaging a corresponding two dimensional array of viewing areas of the target surface.

8. The imaging system for inspecting features located at a known inter-feature pitch on portions of a target surface of claim 1 , wherein:

the lens array is a two dimensional array of rows of lenses wherein

each row of lenses contains lenses of a single magnification and successive rows of lenses contain lenses of different magnifications, and

the lens array is selectively indexed by rows row to select a single row of lenses as a linear array of lenses at a corresponding magnification for imaging of the features.

9. The imaging system for inspecting features located at a known inter-feature pitch on portions of a target surface of claim 1 , further comprising:

a plurality of cross-talk baffles in an optical path between the lenses of the lens array and the array of imaging elements.

10. The imaging system for inspecting features located at a known inter-feature pitch on portions of a target surface of claim 9 wherein:

each cross talk-baffle is formed by a ring trench surrounding a corresponding lens of the lens array.

11. The imaging system for inspecting features located at a known inter-feature pitch on portions of a target surface of claim 5 , further comprising:

a plurality of cross-talk baffles in an optical path between the lenses of the lens array and the array of imaging elements.

12. The imaging system for inspecting features located at a known inter-feature pitch on portions of a target surface of claim 11 , wherein:

each cross-baffle is formed of a slit in the radiation redirection element, each slit being located between adjacent optical paths between corresponding adjacent lenses of the lens array and the array of imaging elements.