.webp){kind=small}
Industrial
Semiconductor manufacturing equipment
Support inspection, metrology, and equipment control with programmable image processing, sensor interfaces, and data movement.
Adaptable inspection and control
Rising demand for semiconductor parts in IoT, AI devices, and electric vehicles is driving rapid development in process node and 3D packaging technologies, requiring advanced lithography, assembly, and testing capability.
Inspection and metrology systems must process detailed images, move sensor data, and coordinate equipment control. Altera FPGAs support configurable image-processing pipelines, parallel data paths, and specialized interfaces that designers can tailor to system timing and throughput requirements.
The Challenges, and Why FPGA
The Challenge
Advancing nodes and 3D packaging
New process nodes and packaging structures change inspection patterns, data formats, and equipment requirements.
Why FPGA
Custom image processing
Programmable logic lets designers tailor preprocessing and image-processing pipelines as inspection requirements evolve.
The Challenge
Growing inspection data volumes
High-resolution cameras and metrology sensors generate data that must move through processing, storage, and host interfaces.
Why FPGA
Parallel processing and data movement
FPGA pipelines can process image streams in parallel and connect sensors to downstream compute with configurable interfaces.
The Challenge
Predictable equipment timing
Inspection and process equipment must coordinate sensor capture, motion, and control paths with predictable timing.
Why FPGA
Deterministic hardware paths
Dedicated logic can coordinate timing-sensitive processing and control; validate latency and jitter against system requirements.
Why Altera
Video and Vision Processing Suite
Build configurable image-processing pipelines with the Video and Vision Processing Suite and custom FPGA logic.
Agilex FPGA platforms
Match logic, memory, and interface resources to inspection workloads across Agilex 7 and Agilex 5 FPGA platforms.
Quartus Prime development
Integrate IP and custom logic with Quartus Prime software, then compile and evaluate the FPGA design.
Sensor interface resources
Explore sensor interface resources and tailor FPGA I/O to the selected cameras, sensors, and equipment architecture.
Get Started
More Industrial Applications
Programmable logic controllers
Combine control logic, I/O, and industrial communications.
Machine vision and AI
Build custom image-processing and selected edge-inference pipelines.
.png?w=367&v=a46efd30-426c-4995-a7bc-e6216fba6c7b&itok=i88-kJaV)
Smart energy
Enable intelligent energy systems with real-time monitoring, efficient power management, and adaptable FPGA solutions for modern smart grids.
Common questions
The FPGA can acquire and condition high-rate image data, implement supported processing stages and transfer results to downstream compute. Defect-detection accuracy still depends on optics, calibration, algorithms and validation with representative samples.
Use FPGA preprocessing when acquisition rates, interface adaptation or supported streaming operations justify processing before GPU transfer. Benchmark whether reduced data movement or earlier conditioning improves the full inspection workflow.
Sum simultaneous camera pixel rates and account for sample depth, transport overhead and every memory pass. Include downstream backpressure and sustained transfer efficiency before choosing links, memory and FPGA resources.
Deterministic latency means processing follows a bounded timing path. Metrology accuracy depends on the complete measurement system, including sensor behavior, calibration, noise and numerical processing; neither property alone establishes the other.
Check camera counters, packet errors, buffer occupancy and downstream transfer stalls using known image patterns. Correlate missing regions with acquisition timing before changing defect-detection or image-enhancement algorithms.
Use it when the supported extension architecture meets distributed endpoint, latency and bandwidth requirements. Verify software, endpoint compatibility and network topology for the selected implementation rather than assuming conventional PCIe behavior across any Ethernet network.