Senior FPGA Failure Analysis Engineer

Altera; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 149,000 - 216,000; Full time

Job summary

Altera, the world’s largest pure‑play FPGA solutions provider, seeks an experienced Failure Analysis Engineer in San Jose, CA to lead non-destructive fault isolation and root-cause analysis for FPGA yield and reliability.

You will collaborate across design, foundry, product and reliability teams, using EMMI, LVP, OBIRCH and other FA tools to diagnose failures, drive improvements, and support customer returns, with opportunities in advanced process technologies.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Eng, Materials Science, Physics, Mechanical Engineering or related field.
• 8+ years of semiconductor failure analysis experience.
• 8+ years with Layout & Design tools (Virtuoso, Avalon, SysNav).
• 8+ years with FA tools such as Laser Voltage Probing (LVP), Photo Emission EMMI, Optical Beam Induced Resistance Change (OBIRCH).
• 8+ years of experience with DFT and logic fault localization.
• 8+ years driving investigations to root-cause and to drive yield/reliability improvements.
• 10+ years of experience in semiconductor failure analysis.
• Understanding of FPGA architecture.
• Understanding design debug features (DFT).
• Experience with using Teradyne Ultraflex tester.
• Semiconductor packaging failure analysis.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with Product/Yield/Reliability Engineers to drive electrical verification, and fault isolation during product development, yield improvement and reliability risk assessments
• Support debug and fault isolation on customer returns
• Define, execute and interpret fault isolation methods as appropriate to non‑destructively isolate a failure using commercial testers and fault isolation tools
• Proficient in independently using Emission microscopes, Laser Voltage Probing and OBIRCH tools
• Experienced with layout, schematic and design analysis tools
• Collaborate with physical failure analysis team on defect modes

Skills

FPGA architecture

Root cause analysis

Failure analysis

DFT understanding

Yield/reliability optimization

Non-destructive fault isolation

Education

Bachelor's degree in Electrical Eng, Materials Science, Physics, Mechanical Engineering or a related field

Tools

Virtuoso

Avalon

SysNav

LVP

EMMI

OBIRCH

Teradyne Ultraflex tester

Job description

Altera, the world’s largest pure‑play FPGA solutions provider, seeks an experienced Failure Analysis Engineer in San Jose, CA to lead non-destructive fault isolation and root-cause analysis for FPGA yield and reliability.

You will collaborate across design, foundry, product and reliability teams, using EMMI, LVP, OBIRCH and other FA tools to diagnose failures, drive improvements, and support customer returns, with opportunities in advanced process technologies.