A custom computing solution to automated visual inspection of silicon wafers

This paper illustrates, through a specific example, the utility and effectiveness of using the reconfigurable capabilities of an FPGA-based custom computing platform as part of an industrial inspection system. The inspection task examined is typical of many industrial inspection tasks which require the identification of several different types of failures of products on a manufacturing assembly line. Like many inspection tasks, a number of features must be examined-each of which may require unique signal processing. A custom computing platform can provide the demanding signal processing performance while maintaining the capability of rapidly reconfiguring for an assortment of tasks