Shape recognition of solder ball bumps in a BGA (Ball Grid Array) is an important issue in flip chip bonding technology. In particular, the semiconductor industry has required faster and more accurate inspection of micron-size solder bumps in flip chip bonding as the density of balls has increased dramatically. The difficulty of this issue comes from specular reflection on the metal ball. Shape recognition of a metal ball is a very realproblem for computer vision systems. Specular reflection of the metal ball appears, disappears, or changes its image abruptly due to tiny movementson behalf of the viewer. This paper presents a practical shape recognition method for three dimensional (3-D) inspection of a BGA using a 5-step ring illumination device. When the ring light illuminates the balls, distinctive specularity images of the balls, which are referred to as "iso-slope contours" in this paper, are shown. By using a mathematical reflectance model, we can drive the 3-D shape information of the ball in aquantitative manner. The experimental results show the usefulness of the method for industrial application in terms of time and accuracy.