APPEARANCE INSPECTION APPARATUS OF ELECTRONIC COMPONENT

PURPOSE:To obtain the appearance inspection apparatus, of an electronic component, wherein a defective part can be specified with high accuracy. CONSTITUTION:On the basis of image data obtained by sensing the image of an electronic component C by a camera 1 while the component is illuminated with an illumination device 2, a range under test on the electronic component C is specified by a judgment and processing part 3d, the average brightness of a plurality of pixels continued in a direction parallel to the X-axis within the range under test is computed in individual Y-coordinates and a brightness difference between the individual pixels and the average brightness corresponding to the pixels is computed. In addition, cumulative values of the brightness difference in the individual Y-coordinates are computed, the mean value of the cumulative values within the range under test is computed as an average cumulative value, each cumulative value is compared with the average cumulative value, and whether the outward-appearance shape of the electronic component C is good or not is judged. Thereby, a defective part can be specified with high accuracy by the Y-coordinater and the reliability of an appearance inspection and the production efficiency of the title inspection apparatus can be enhanced.