The PA-7000 Series firewalls are modular systems and requires a minimum set of front slot cards. The required cards include the Switch Management Card (SMC), Log Processing Card (LPC) or Log Forwarding Card (LFC), and at least one Network Processing Card (NPC). To expand port density and throughput, you can install a total of six NPCs in the PA-7050 firewall and ten NPCs in the PA-7080 firewall. You can also optionally install Data Processing Cards (DPCs) to improve the processing power of the chassis. The PA-7050 supports up to five DPCs and the PA-7080 supports up to nine DPCs. For details on installing front slot cards, see Install the Mandatory PA-7000 Series Firewall Front Slot Cards.

Although all front slot cards have protection to prevent damage if they are installed or removed when the chassis is powered on, only the NPCs and DPCs are intended to be hot-swapped.