Optical Architect

Base Pay Range: $154,000.00 - $261,800.00 Annually

Primary Location: USA-CA-Milpitas-KLA

KLA’s total rewards package for employees may also include participation in performance incentive programs and eligibility for additional benefits identified below. Interns are eligible for some of the benefits identified below. Our pay ranges are determined by role, level, and location. The range displayed above reflects the minimum and maximum pay for this position in the primary location identified in this posting. Actual pay depends on several factors, including location, job-related skills, experience, and relevant education level or training. If applicable, your recruiter can share more about the specific pay range for your preferred location during the hiring process.

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 RAPID division is the world leading provider of reticle inspection solutions for the semiconductor industry. The company provides inspection solutions to both the mask shops and the semiconductor fabs to ensure that lithography yields are consistently high thus enabling cost-effective manufacturing.

Job Description/Preferred Qualifications

Job Description

KLA is looking for a staff- level principal optical engineer. This person will be an optical architect/lead optical engineer in the optical engineering group in the photomask inspection division. Specific deliverables include ultra-high precision optical system design, optical alignment methodology, and analysis of various optical modules. This person will also lead the design of a custom metrology system to verify and adjust the optical performance of our primary optical system. The candidate will interact closely with the systems engineering group and other hardware engineering groups to define performance criteria and system level specification. Other Specific tasks include creating optical models, statistical tolerance analysis, performance predictions, leading design reviews, creating test procedures, and selecting suppliers.

Responsibilities

• Being a lead optical person, responsible of creating optical architecture, conducting key optical analysis and modeling and providing leadership team with technical recommendations.
• Investigate various design options and find the best option through evaluating tolerances, optical performance, manufacturability, light budgets and other trade-offs.
• Translate system or subsystem requirements into optical design and manufacturing requirements.
• Perform thorough tolerancing analysis to have a complete system design with full consideration of alignment process and metrology, system calibrations and opto-mech design limitations by interfacing with other groups (systems, ME).

• Design and implement optical alignment and metrology process, test/tooling fixtures to achieve targeted optical performance.

• Follows complete design process, including design reviews, part procurement from vendors, testing, integration and release.

Qualifications

The preferred candidate will have experience and capability in the following areas:

• Excellent optical system design such as high precision imaging system, illumination design, preferably in semiconductor tools
• Designing and building off-axis mirror system in high precision
• Understand of optical coating in various wavelength such as EUV, UV, and IR and coating modeling in optical software
• High proficiency in optical design software such as CodeV or Zemax or LightTools
• Statistical optical component tolerancing
• Able to create specifications of precision opto-mechanical assemblies
• Understand optics manufacturability and reflect it in optical design
• Strong understanding in optical metrology tool and data
• Building and aligning complex optical system using diverse mechanical, collimation, point source microscope, CGH, and interferometry.
• Deliver solid design reviews and achieve design approvals from multi-disciplinary stakeholders
• Working knowledge with diverse optical devices and components: objectives, collimation and relay optics, fibers, cameras and detectors
• EUV experience is preferred but not a must
• Basic CAD skill is preferred not a must

Experience

• Highly desired to have more than 10 years of professional experience in high precision optical system development, preferably in semiconductor tools
• Experience of working with top tier optical suppliers to develop high precision optics and optical assembly
• Strong emphasis on creative problem solving and effective communication.
• Be able to interface with multidisciplinary groups and work effectively in a team and be willing to take on responsibility, follow through and keep multiple simultaneous assignments on schedule.
• Be able to quickly acquire technical knowledge from documentation and on-the-job training and be capable of thoroughly investigating technical issues (analytically and hands-on in a lab).
• Strong communication and presentation skill. Must have the capability to clearly communicating progress and status of ongoing investigations to managers and to customers; Candidate will be required to write reports documenting investigations carried out.
• Experience of presenting executive leadership team highly complex technical topics.

Personal skills

• Should be able to work, and deliver self-independently with minimum supervision
• Can observe and respond to people and situations and interact with others encountered in the course of work.
• Strong customer focus and commitment to customer satisfaction through prioritization, quality, efficiency and professionalism.
• Ability to complete assignments with attention to detail and high degree of accuracy.
• Proven ability to perform effectively in a demanding environment with changing workloads and deadlines.
• Result driven-demonstrate ownership and accountability.
• Identifies bottlenecks and drives improvements.
• Work independently or as part of a team and follow through on assignments with minimal supervision.
• Demonstrate open, clear, concise and professional communication.
• Ability to establish and maintain cooperative working relationships with manager, co-workers and customer.
• Work according to a strict set of procedures within the provided timelines.

Minimum Qualifications

• This is a senior engineering role. Advanced degree is a must.
• Doctorate in Optics/Physics and 5+ years of work experience, or a Master's Degree and 8+ years of work experience.

Education

• MS or Ph.D in Optical engineering (preferred) or Physics
• Highly desired to have strong background in following disciplines, Geometrical optics, Fourier optics, Lens design, Radiometry, Optical metrology, Illumination optics, Optical imaging system, Optical alignment

Minimum Qualifications
Doctorate (Academic) Degree and related work experience of 5 years; Master's Level Degree and related work experience of 8 years; Bachelor's Level Degree and related work experience of 12 years

The company offers a total rewards package that is competitive and comprehensive including but not limited to the following: medical, dental, vision, life, and other voluntary benefits, 401(K) including company matching, employee stock purchase program (ESPP), student debt assistance, tuition reimbursement program, development and career growth opportunities and programs, financial planning benefits, wellness benefits including an employee assistance program (EAP), paid time off and paid company holidays, and family care and bonding leave.

KLA is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status or any other status protected by applicable law. We will ensure that qualified individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us at talent.acquisition@kla.com or at +1-408-352-2808 to request accommodation.

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