Senior Staff Optical Engineer

Company Overview 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. Group/Division 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 Broadband Plasma Division (BBP) provides market-leading patterned wafer optical inspection systems for leading-edge IC manufacturing. Logic, foundry, and memory customers depend on BBP products to detect yield-critical defects for process debug and excursion monitoring at advanced process nodes. BBP flagship products include the 29xx and 39xx series which leverage Broadband Plasma technology to capture a wide range of defects with ultimate sensitivity at the optical inspection speeds needed for inline defect monitoring. Job Description/Preferred Qualifications The candidate will join a team of optical engineers within the BBP division to develop innovative wafer inspection products. Optics is the core part of BBP products, which include high-brightness light-sources, broadband coatings, complex optical subsystem and high-speed sensors. This position is responsible for the complete design process of one or multiple optical subsystems to support BBP roadmap: Provide technical leadership by owning and investigating optical architecture and design options to find the best option through systematic trade off among different performance metrics as well as costs & schedule implications. Closely collaborate with external suppliers and internal functional teams such as technology and system engineering to gather optical performance dependencies. Translate system requirements into optical, mechanical and metrology requirements. Develop and implement optical metrology and alignment concepts to achieve the targeted optical performances. Follow KLA design processes, including design reviews, part procurement from vendors, testing, integration and release. Solve problems that arise within the proto or released inspection systems.

Solid background in optics, physics or related field such as imaging system aberrations, Fourier optics, polarization, Radiometry etc. Hands-on experiences in lens design, especially in diffraction limited large numerical aperture microscope objective lenses. Experienced in developing the optical system performance and design requirements Experienced in developing optical alignment, error budgets, and metrology for high precision and highly complex optical system. Expert user of Code V or Zemax.  Proficiency with Matlab or Python. Prior experience in semiconductor inspection or lithography equipment is strongly preferred.