The semiconductor industry standardized on several classes of handlers to process ICs. One of those used JEDEC trays with precise features molded into them to locate the part in a position for accurate mark placement.

The parts and their dimensions could and would change on short notice. This often put stress on the NPI schedule to procur sufficient quantities of new trays to process the parts in production. Even then, the tolerances of the plastic trays was insufficient to guarantee the quality metric of accurate mark placement.

A machine vision system was integrated into the scan head to "look" at the parts through the beam steering lens and adjust the position to align to the parts as they were presented. Concurrent processing was implemented to "bury" the image processing time within the mark time and maintain overall desired throughput.

Guaranteed mark accuracy, faster time to market for new products. Lower cost, reduced risk to product launch. The customer did not need to worry about tray lead times for new products, inventory, etc. Faster switch over times, greater utilization of capital in production. Made scheduling production much easier as they could put any part in any tray.