Research Position at Texas Instruments (Dallas, Texas)

This is a stress modeling position in TI's research organization Silicon Technology Development (SiTD). The opening is immediate and the position is filling very fast. Minimum requirement: MS degree in the following fields: Mechanical Engineering, Physics, Materials Science or Engineering Mechanics. PhD degree is preferred.  Please email your resume to Jie-Hua (Jeff) Zhao at jhzhao@ti.com or Darvin Edwards at rvin@ti.com. Call Jeff at 972-995-8851 for detail. Job description is listed below:

1. Primary Responsibilities: (1) Develop new techniques to improve the efficiency of thermomechanical analysis at TI, (2) develop proven validation correlation of the new techniques developed, (3) interact with universities/consortia to guide them to meet TI’s needs, (4) perform reliability analysis of Sun microprocessor packages, (5) insure package / process compatibility for the new high performance process nodes, (6) work with software vendors to insure they develop the features needed by TI

2. Supporting & Secondary Responsibilities: (1) Document and fan-out learning from the efficiency improvements, new techniques developed, and validations to the entirety of TI, (2) interact with TI customers to highlight modeling results.

3. Management Organization Skills: Ability to run small projects of 3-12 month duration.  May include some budgeting.  Ability to oversee, lead, and direct university research activities.

4. Opportunities for Improvements: This position will provide the candidate an opportunity to expand skills in materials characterization, to interact with package process development teams, interact with universities doing research for TI, and to solve problems that are critical to TI and TI's customers.  Support is offered to those who wish to build a reputation of technical excellence through industry consortia interactions, standards committee activities, university liaison work, or conference publications.

5. Complex Tasks : (1) Develop roadmaps for thermomechanical analysis and required material characterization going forward 5-10 years.  (2) Work to make the roadmaps a reality.  (3) Analyze stress distributions in IC's, packages and interconnect systems.  Includes dynamic drop test modeling.  (4) Predict device reliability based on analysis results and recommend optimizations.  Knowledge of adhesion mechanisms, fracture mechanics, and solder fatigue required.  (5) Recommend changes in process variables and design rules to improve mechanical robustness of IC's. (6) Interface with materials characterization engineers to obtain appropriate test conditions and materials properties. (7) Interface with internal TI groups and external TI customers to share generated data. (8) Interface with universities (SRC, Sematech, etc.) to direct research

6. Technical Abilities: Required experience includes: (1) Hands on experience in thermomechanical, non-linear analysis, (2) Experience with Ansys and LS-Dyna preferred including  ANSYS APDL, (3) knowledge of material models which impact the reliability of IC packages such as fatigue theory, elastic/plastic/creep theory, fracture toughness, sub critical crack growth, and adhesion principles, (4) ability to built fully parameterized FEA meshing macros, (5) ability to clearly communicate findings and write concise reports.  Desired experience includes: (6) Experience with IC packaging, (7) Understanding of molecular dynamics modeling and the bridge to continuum models with applications to thermomechanical analysis in IC and packages, (8) software coding experience with a language such as Fortran90, C, C++, Python, Matlab, etc., (4) some hands on materials measurements experience, (9) background in drop test modeling.

7. Team & People Skills: Ability to work across functional boundaries to gather the information needed to understand the problem and perform the modeling.  Ability to leverage teams outside of packaging to meet TI’s needs.   Ability to work with respect for others within a friendly and motivated team environment.

8. Projects & Deliverables: All projects will require a complete report documenting the purpose of the task, the methods used to model to achieve this purpose, and the conclusions.  If the conclusion reached doesn’t solve the problem, the candidate is expected to suggest alternative solutions.  Specific project will include development of next generation microprocessor packages for highest reliability, support for FC-BGA type packages, and driving development of next generation computational tools and meshing techniques.

Additional skills and experience (include years of required experience):  Knowledge of wafer fab processes is helpful

List unique selling features of this position, team or project : As a member of this organization, you will interface with many business groups, from the wafer fab development group, to die designers, to product development groups, to direct interactions with TI's customers.  It is an environment where innovation is encouraged, where we're always looking for creative answers to difficult questions.  This job provides excellent freedom for advancement as well as for personally broadening one's interest and establishing multiple professional relationships.

Include potential or preferred avenues to source candidates for this position: The best qualified person from either internal or external sources.

Special Work Environment: Work with an excellent group of talented, highly motivated people who are passionate about enhancing the state of the semiconductor packaging sciences and modeling methodologies.