 Eric
Lee
Manufacturing Tools
Project Leader
SEMATECH
 |
 B.S. -- Physics;
Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
 |
Manufacturing Tools
Project Leader, developing plasma-etch processes for
semiconductor manufacturing, which delineate patterns on the
silicon or film on the wafer. |
 |
"It's very important
to be technically competent. It's also very important to have
people skills. You've got to be able to write. You've got to be
a salesman, because your job requires you to sell colleagues on
your ideas." |
Lee:
"So what I do, in part of that chip-making process, is design physical
processes like plasma etch, for instance, which is what I do, to delineate
patterns in the silicon or whatever film that we're putting down -- it
could be a polymer; it could be a metal. And this is part of a multi-layer
process that results in the end computer chip. At the moment, we've got
some work where we're trying to help one of our customers, a production
fab, transfer in a product that we've proven here in a pilot line
situation. So we have designed process, we're gathering the data now to
transfer to them, so that they can take and try to duplicate that data,
and scale up the process to thousands of wafers started every week."
Lee: "It's very much
a team environment. This industry doesn't have as much of the desktop
science as you'll see in a lot of physics labs. It's very important to be
technically competent. It's also very important to have people skills
here. You've got to be able to write. You've got to be a salesman, because
your job requires you to sell colleagues on your ideas. So you must be
able to articulate them, you must be able to produce the data to support
it, ad you must be able to get along with these people who are
instrumental in bringing it to success. My part of the process is just a
small piece of the line. To make a finished computer chip, or at least
from bare silicon to the time it walks out of our door, can be 150
different process steps. And mine will be a small portion of that. So
you've got to be able to work in a team environment. And you're also
trying to be aware of the interactions that may not always be obvious."
Download Full Profile as PDF
|
|
