Highlights

-- Test & Measurement World, 2/1/2008

Rudolph purchases IP and assets from RVSI Inspection

Rudolph Technologies, a provider of process-characterization equipment and software used in wafer-processing and semiconductor manufacturing, reports that it has acquired all intellectual property and selected assets from RVSI Inspection of Hauppauge, NY. Rudolph said it expects the addition of RVSI’s industry-standard WS-3800 3-D bumped wafer inspection system to its product portfolio will strengthen its presence in the advanced packaging market. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

The WS-Series wafer inspection system is used by back-end manufacturers, particularly for bump applications. The system performs 3-D bump-height and coplanarity measurements, and with proprietary MicroMap 3-D laser-based triangulation, it is designed to achieve required inspection speeds without compromising defect detection.

“We will be adding an excellent technical team to our Rudolph organization and expect to quickly and efficiently fold the RVSI operations into our existing inspection business,” said Nathan Little, executive VP and GM of the Inspection Business Unit. “With a high level of customer overlap, combined with our existing global applications and service support network, our goal is to make this transition as seamless as possible.”

Rudolph will maintain a technology center for the wafer scanner products in Hauppauge but will relocate the manufacturing activities to Bloomington, MN. www.rudolphtech.com.

Call for papers: The Vision Show

The Automated Imaging Association is seeking presentations for The Vision Show 2008, scheduled for June 10–12 in Boston, MA. Possible topics include machine-vision lighting and software, 3-D vision, nonvisible imaging, and smart cameras. www.machinevisiononline.org.

Quest chooses Lattice FPGAs

Lattice Semiconductor has announced that Netherlands-based Quest Innovations selected the LatticeECP2/M field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) for use in its next-generation Raptor series of Gigabit Ethernet cameras. Quest has integrated its QuadCore IP multicore parallel pixel processing unit into the Lattice FPGAs, which incorporate the LatticeMico32 open-source soft microprocessor core, 840-Mbps high-speed low-voltage differential signaling (LVDS) I/O, a pre-engineered DDR2 memory interface, and full-featured digital signal processor (DSP) blocks.

By connecting 10 QuadCore IP cores, Quest can process and transfer images at 1 Gbyte/s. The latest version of the Raptor camera system will support more than 2 Mpixels, 500 fps, and 8 Gbytes of memory; the camera will also perform preprocessing and store up to 24 s of high-speed image data.

“The LatticeECP2/M FPGA family proved to be an excellent platform for integrating our high-performance QuadCore scalable pixel processing IP into our Raptor camera systems,” said Richard Meester, president and CEO of Quest Innovations. “The combination of the Lattice FPGAs and IP cores, combined with our expertise in machine-vision systems, has allowed Quest Innovations to develop a truly industry-leading, user-programmable camera system.” www.latticesemi.com.

See also, Stuttgart show highlights vision market for an assessment of the worldwide machine-vision industry, with an emphasis on the German market.