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May 8, 2025 | Linda Stepanich, IPCEstimated reading time: 1 minute
When residents in sleepy English villages needed a top-tier detective to solve a murder, they called on Belgian super-sleuth Hercule Poirot, author Agatha Christie’s fictional detective famous for using his “little grey cells” to solve crimes. In the same way, IPC standards development committees, when creating a standard to detect defects in circuit boards using Automated Optical Inspection (AOI), call on IPC A-Team, Hercule.
AOI is an automated visual inspection of a printed circuit board in which a camera scans the device to test for failures and defects. IPC-9716, Requirements for Automated Optical Inspection (AOI) Process Control for Printed Board Assemblies, released in January 2025, is the first automated inspection standard in a series.
The subject matter expert leading A-Team Hercule hails from Singapore, not Belgium, and is well known for working late into the night to help detect circuit board mysteries with his fellow committee members around the globe. Meet Feng Xue, IBM, chair of 7-25A, the Automated Optical Inspection Process Control Standard Task Group, A-Team Hercule, and 7-25B, AOI Process Control for IC Substrates Standard Task Group.
When Feng started working at IBM, he worked closely with Matt Kelly, who also worked at IBM and is now IPC’s CTO/VP of Technology Solutions, on cloud applications in IoT and AI, “on all the smart manufacturing stuff,” Feng says. The two stayed in touch after Matt left IBM.
“I still had frequent conversations with Matt, and he asked me to work with him on the factory of the future issues, including issues like AOI,” Feng says. “We realized there were no active specifications for this type of inspection and no committee working on one until Matt recruited me. He thought I had the right expertise and asked me to chair a new committee, and I was happy to do it.” Feng’s background is in microelectronics, making him ideal for the role of committee chair. “I worked in a wafer fab before joining IBM. So, basically, I’m a wafer guy. When you’re dealing with wafers, you’re dealing with packaging.”
Continue reading this article in the spring 2025 issue of IPC Community.
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