Novel eddy current testing sensor for the inspection of printed circuit boards

This paper presents a novel eddy-current testing (ECT) sensor for the inspection of printed circuit board (PCB), which detects trace damages on PCB conductors. The sensor is composed of a meander-exciting coil and three solenoid pick-up coils. Application of three pick-up coils increases the speed of the inspection process. Information about defects can be extracted either from an amplitude or a phase of a signal obtained during the inspection. A visualization process was provided using the amplitude data. The structure of the ECT sensor and principles of detection, as well as experimental results, are presented.