Sr. Electrical Design Engineer (Firmware, DSP, Image Alignment)

KLA•Milpitas, CA

8d•Onsite

About The Position

The Semiconductor Products and Customers (Semi PC) business unit designs, builds and sells KLA’s product portfolio to help chip manufacturers meet high-quality standards for technologies like AI, data centers, automotive and electronic devices. Our inspection, metrology, and analytics systems detect and monitor defects across logic and memory chips, specialty semiconductors, wafers, reticles, advanced packaging, process equipment and materials. We also develop technologies for specialty processes, IC substrates, and PCB manufacturing, including etch and deposition, component inspection, and imaging and analytics. The Broadband Plasma (BBP) division is the market-leading optical inspection system used by logic, foundry, and memory customers to detect critical defects at advanced nodes. These tools combine broadband plasma technology with unmatched sensitivity and speed to support high-volume manufacturing. In this role, you will play a key part in advancing business priorities by delivering high-impact work across your area of expertise. We are looking for a Sr. Electrical Design Engineer to join our team in Milpitas! In this hands-on role, you will develop embedded firmware and algorithms for KLA's run-time alignment systems, connecting image-based measurements with precision motion control. You will help advance our alignment architecture, migrate and optimize algorithms across computing platforms, and deliver reliable solutions from concept through system qualification and field deployment.

Requirements

Strong C/C++ programming skills in embedded environments, including debugging, concurrency, memory management, and performance optimization; proficiency in Python for test automation and data analysis.
Hands-on experience with real-time embedded or DSP systems, including interrupts, task scheduling, interprocessor communication, shared memory, and synchronization.
Solid understanding of digital signal processing and image processing, including filtering, image registration or alignment, offset estimation, and the effects of noise and ambiguous image features.
Working knowledge of feedback-control fundamentals and the ability to assess how measurement quality, sampling, latency, and filtering affect closed-loop behavior.
Experience developing and troubleshooting in Linux, including multithreaded applications, process scheduling, build/debug tools, and hardware/software communication.
Ability to read schematics and device datasheets, debug register-level interfaces and data paths, and use oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, or embedded debuggers to resolve integration issues.
Experience with version control such as Git or SVN, code reviews, automated testing, and disciplined firmware qualification and release practices.
Strong analytical, written, and verbal communication skills, with the ability to work across electrical, FPGA, software, algorithms, mechanical, and systems engineering teams.

Nice To Haves

Experience porting and optimizing algorithms between x86 processors and multicore DSPs, including cache-aware design, DMA, and fixed-point/floating-point numerical considerations.
Experience with semiconductor inspection, machine vision, precision positioning, or other high-speed imaging and motion-control systems.
Experience with real-time Linux performance analysis, CPU affinity/isolation, scheduler tracing, and latency or jitter troubleshooting.
Familiarity with BSPs, device drivers, embedded Linux build systems, networking, and peripheral interfaces such as PCIe, SPI, or I2C.
Experience with hardware-in-the-loop simulation, reference-data replay, continuous integration, and FPGA-connected high-throughput data paths.

Responsibilities

Design, implement, and debug C/C++ firmware for real-time image alignment, signal processing, and feedback control on embedded Linux and DSP-based platforms.
Migrate alignment algorithms from host processors to multicore DSPs; profile and optimize execution time, memory use, data movement, and synchronization while preserving numerical accuracy and real-time behavior.
Develop and validate image-offset estimation, digital filtering, and confidence-based alignment methods that remain robust under low-contrast, repetitive-pattern, and other challenging imaging conditions.
Partner with motion-control and algorithm engineers to integrate image-based measurements into stage feedback and trajectory correction; characterize accuracy, noise, latency, and control-loop behavior.
Define and implement hardware/software interfaces across processors, FPGAs, image-acquisition electronics, and motion controllers, including data formats, buffering, interrupts, and communication timing.
Bring up and integrate hardware and firmware using schematics, device datasheets, lab instruments, and embedded debugging tools; isolate system-level failures across hardware, firmware, and software.
Own verification from simulation and bench testing through on-system qualification.
Build automated regression tests, compare migrated algorithms with reference implementations, and document performance and robustness results.
Support controlled firmware releases and field escalations through reproducible diagnostics, root-cause analysis, configuration/version traceability, and clear documentation for engineering, manufacturing, and service teams.