Associate FIB-SEM Engineer

At MITRE, your passion fuels work that impacts our nation and improves lives. This is where your skills strengthen national security, cybersecurity, health, transportation, and citizen services. We’re a nonprofit engineering, applied research, and advanced technology organization working in the public interest. With objectivity and integrity at our core, we lead federally funded research and development centers for U.S. government agencies – collaborating with industry and academia to deliver integrated, high-impact solutions that advance our nation’s health, security, and prosperity.

Our people tackle the toughest technical challenges, supported by competitive benefits, meaningful career development, and a culture of innovation, collaboration, and technical excellence. Choose MITRE for a career with purpose — and help shape the future.

MITRE’s Electronic Systems Security department is seeking to hire talented and creative professionals with backgrounds in engineering and/or physical sciences and a focus on microelectronics processing to support several different advanced research and development projects of national significance. Qualified candidates will join a team of technical experts in microelectronics security, collaborating with multi-disciplinary teams to advance the state-of-the-art in embedded security.

Our diverse set of sponsors and research objectives provide a wide variety of interesting work opportunities.

• Participate in teams that perform hands-on security assessments of embedded systems, and develop new approaches and countermeasures for emerging physical threats to embedded systems.
• Delayer, cross-section, prepare TEM lamellae, and perform circuit edit on chips using state-of-the-art FIB and PFIB systems. Image chips with SEM and optical microscopy.
• Prepare samples for FIB-SEM, e.g. mechanical polishing and sputter coating with thin conductive materials.
• Target specific areas on chips with advanced navigation, per instructions from the microelectronics analysis team.
• Safety - Contribute to a safe laboratory working environment.
• Monitor tool performance and work with tool vendors for preventative maintenance and emergency repair.
• Contribute to process improvements, documentation, and cross-training.

• Typically requires less than 1 year of related experience with a related bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Materials Science, Chemistry, Physics, or equivalent combination of related education and work experience.
• Experience with FIB-SEM and/or PFIB-SEM, and the associated sample preparation.
• Effective oral and written communication skills.
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team.
• Attention to detail.
• Prolific at recording technical information in notebooks and internal reports.
• Must be eligible to obtain and maintain a Secret U.S Government issued Security Clearance. Per the U.S. Government’s eligibility requirements, you must be a U.S Citizen to be considered for a security clearance.
• This position has an on-site requirement of 5 days a week on-site

• Master’s degree or PhD in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Materials Science, Chemistry, Physics, or a related field.
• Experience with semiconductor reverse engineering and/or failure analysis methods and equipment, such as wet chemistry, vacuum equipment, reactive ion etchers, micro/nanofabrication tools, failure analysis tools, CAD navigation, precision milling and polishing stations, optical microscopy, IR microscopy, and mechanical tools.
• Active security clearance.

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