Principal Materials and Failure Analysis Engineer; SIMS

Primary Duties & Responsibilities

• Lead the establishment of Coherent Sherman’s SIMS laboratory, including capability definition, facility requirements, equipment selection, installation, qualification, and operational readiness.
• Develop the strategic roadmap for SIMS characterization capabilities to support current and future semiconductor, photonics, and optoelectronic technologies across Coherent.
• Direct and perform a SIMS Materials Analysis workflow including sample preparation, tool setup, data acquisition, interpretation, reporting, and method development, with emphasis on quality, efficiency, throughput, and on-time delivery.
• Serve as the site Subject Matter Expert (SME) for SIMS analysis, providing technical leadership and guidance to manufacturing, epitaxy, R&D, quality, reliability, and product engineering organizations.
• Define and implement laboratory workflows, analytical procedures, quality systems, calibration methodologies, maintenance plans, and operational best practices to ensure world-class analytical performance and data integrity.
• Lead the installation, acceptance testing, qualification, and ongoing optimization of SIMS instrumentation and supporting laboratory infrastructure.
• Partner with Equipment Engineering and Facilities teams to maximize tool reliability, uptime, and analytical performance through effective maintenance, troubleshooting, repair, and upgrade activities.
• Perform and coordinate advanced materials characterization and failure analysis using SIMS, SEM, FIB, TEM, EDX, optical microscopy, and other analytical techniques as required to solve complex technical problems.
• Lead complex analytical investigations and root cause analyses to identify material, process, and device-related failure mechanisms and drive corrective actions.
• Prepare and publish technical reports tailored to specific audiences and effectively communicate analytical findings, conclusions, and recommendations to engineers, management, and customers as needed.
• Work closely with cross-functional teams to support new product introduction, technology development, yield improvement, quality enhancement, reliability investigations, and cost reduction initiatives.
• Develop, qualify, and implement new SIMS analytical methods, sample preparation techniques, and measurement capabilities for emerging material systems, epitaxial structures, advanced devices, and next-generation technologies.
• Drive continuous improvement of analytical processes, laboratory operations, measurement capability, throughput, automation, and overall operational efficiency.
• Collaborate with global Coherent materials characterization teams to transfer best practices, standardize methodologies, and establish Sherman as a key SIMS and materials characterization resource within the organization.
• Build and maintain productive relationships with internal customers, global Coherent facilities, equipment suppliers, third-party laboratories, academic institutions, and industry experts to accelerate capability development and technology adoption.
• Establish and maintain analytical standards, procedures, calibration methodologies, and best practices to ensure high-quality, repeatable, and reproducible measurements.
• Track material and device failure modes, maintain analytical databases and failure mode libraries, and provide periodic trend analysis and recommendations to management and engineering teams.
• Identify developmental opportunities for the Materials and Failure Analysis team; create training materials and mentor engineers, technicians, and interns to build organizational capability.
• Lead multiple complex projects simultaneously while balancing customer priorities, business needs, and laboratory objectives.
• Support customer-facing technical discussions, audits, and presentations related to materials characterization, SIMS analysis, failure analysis, and technology development efforts.

Requires a minimum of:

• Bachelor's degree with 9 years of related experience, OR
• Master's degree with 7 years of related experience, OR
• PhD with 4 years of related experience.

Experience should include materials characterization, semiconductor…