June 25, 2012 — SEMATECH added Michael Lercel as senior director for nanodefectivity and metrology, taking the helm on SEMATECH’s ongoing semiconductor wafer metrology program and the new Nanodefect Center based at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering’s (CNSE) Albany NanoTech Complex in NY.
Lercel will serve as the technical liaison between partner companies and SEMATECH, and will develop and execute strategies for defectivity and metrology R&D.
SEMATECH’s new Nanodefect Center collaborates with the semiconductor industry on detecting, modeling, characterizing, and providing solutions for defect issues as geometries shrink below the 10nm node. The center is an expansion of SEMATECH’s metrology and analysis capabilities. It will investigate the generation, propagation, removal, and impact of defects generated by equipment, equipment components, and materials used in advanced semiconductor processes such as lithography, etch, chemical mechanical polishing (CMP), deposition, and cleaning.
Also see: Top semiconductor metrology challenges from SEMATECH POV
Lercel brings “a wealth of real-world processing knowledge” in semiconductor process and equipment R&D and manufacturing to the consortium, said Dan Armbrust, SEMATECH’s president and CEO. Lercel joins SEMATECH from Cymer, where he was senior director of EUV product marketing. Prior to Cymer, Lercel served in various lithography-related positions at IBM for 14 years. Lercel was SEMATECH’s director of lithography from 2005 to 2008, as an assignee from IBM, driving critical R&D in next-generation litho technologies.
Lercel received a doctorate in physics from Cornell University and holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He owns 11 patents and has delivered numerous presentations and papers at major industry meetings.
SEMATECH is an international consortium of leading semiconductor device, equipment, and materials manufacturers. Learn more at www.sematech.org.