System Engineer (Optics)

KLA is a global leader in diversified electronics for the semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem. Virtually every electronic device in the world is produced using our technologies. No laptop, smartphone, wearable device, voice-controlled gadget, flexible screen, VR device or smart car would have made it into your hands without us. KLA invents systems and solutions for the manufacturing of wafers and reticles, integrated circuits, packaging, printed circuit boards and flat panel displays. The innovative ideas and devices that are advancing humanity all begin with inspiration, research and development. KLA focuses more than average on innovation and we invest 15% of sales back into R&D. Our expert teams of physicists, engineers, data scientists and problem-solvers work together with the world’s leading technology providers to accelerate the delivery of tomorrow’s electronic devices. Life here is exciting and our teams thrive on tackling really hard problems. There is never a dull moment with us.

With over 40 years of semiconductor process control experience, chipmakers around the globe rely on KLA to ensure that their fabs ramp next-generation devices to volume production quickly and cost-effectively. Enabling the movement towards advanced chip design, KLA's Global Products Group (GPG), which is responsible for creating all of KLA’s metrology and inspection products, is looking for the best and the brightest research scientist, software engineers, application development engineers, and senior product technology process engineers. The LS-SWIFT Division of KLA’s Global Products Group provides patterned wafer inspection systems for high-volume semiconductor manufacturing. Its mission is to deliver market-leading cost of ownership in defect detection for a broad range of applications in the production of semiconductors. Customers from the foundry, logic, memory, automotive, MEMS, advanced packaging and other markets rely upon high-sample wafer inspection information generated by LS-SWIFT products. LS (Laser Scanning) systems enable cost-effective patterned wafer defect detection for the industry’s most sophisticated process technologies deployed in leading-edge foundry, logic, DRAM, and NAND fabs. SWIFT (Simultaneous Wafer Inspection at Fast Throughput) systems deliver all-wafer-surface (frontside, backside, and edge) macro inspection that is critical for automotive IC, MEMS, and advanced packaging processes as well as foundry/logic and memory fabs. LS-SWIFT operates from a global footprint that includes the US, Singapore, India and Germany, and serves a worldwide customer base across Asia, Europe and North America.

Job Description

Responsibilities:

The LS-SWIFT development team is looking for a self-motivated, creative, and results-oriented engineer to ensure smooth adoption of new wafer inspection products at key customer sites. This role requires close interaction with both the customer and local business account team, while maintaining strong ties to the KLA development team in Singapore/US.

The successful candidate will be central to maximizing effectiveness of the product in the fab by ensuring both the customer and local business account teams clearly understand and are supportive of the efforts by the development and support teams to resolve issues and ensure peak product performance on customer layers. This is accomplished via forthright and consistent communication across multiple groups at KLA and at the customer.

The ideal candidate should also demonstrate leadership by taking the initiative in identifying and proposing solutions for potential issues that could impact the product success before they become a problem. This includes both anticipating problems through analysis of technical and non-technical trends over the course of the product evaluation, and, intuiting customer needs and providing direction to the development team for further improvement. You must possess a strong sense of purpose and be driven to continually improve self, others, and the way we do business. 

This position requires effective customer management and deft interpersonal skills, in addition to a deep technical understanding of the KLA product and how it is used by the customer. Strong communication skills both oral and written are required for this job. We are looking for candidates who have intellectual curiosity, are natural problem solvers, work well with others, possess a desire to grow and can demonstrate leadership skills.

Additional details regarding key responsibilities:

• Responsible for subsystem design/development, system integration, test and characterization

• Provide system trouble shooting, new product introduction and escalation support.

• Define system and subsystem specifications

• Document manufacturing procedures

• Provide training to manufacturing engineers and technicians

• Derive and manage detailed manufacturing requirements and introduction plans in the design concept phase

• Cover all aspects of the manufacturing introduction, including: design for manufacturability, quality, tooling, training, process documentation, product structure, build process optimization and facilities requirements

Desired skills and background:

• Advanced degree in applied optics, electrical engineering, applied physics or related disciplines .

• Effective communicator with good interpersonal skills. Extensive hands-on experience in building/testing optical inspection or metrology tools

• Desired experience developing or supporting complex optical-mechanical systems or assemblies

• Desired experience in optoelectronics, sensor technology, microscopy, optics, or systems design/support.

• Strong diagnostic and trouble shooting skills in optics, opto-mechanics, and motion control systems

• Must be focused and driven with an appropriate sense of urgency. Outspoken individual with clear project vision and sense of purpose.

• Proven track record of technical development and/or issues resolution. Good problem solver who is comfortable leading a focused team.

• Good understanding of imaging processing system and algorithms

• Familiar with Python and Matlab must

Minimum education level and work experience:

• Doctorate (Academic) OR

• Master's Level Degree with at least 3 years of experience OR

• Bachelor's Level Degree with at least 5 years of experience

Minimum Qualifications

Doctorate (Academic) Degree and 0 years related work experience; Master's Level Degree and related work experience of 3 years; Bachelor's Level Degree and related work experience of 5 years

We offer a competitive, family friendly total rewards package. We design our programs to reflect our commitment to an inclusive environment, while ensuring we provide benefits that meet the diverse needs of our employees.

KLA is proud to be an equal opportunity employer