Principal Engineer, Photonics Reliability

Ayar Labs•San Jose, CA

1d•$200,000 - $240,000•Onsite

About The Position

Ayar Labs is seeking a Principal Engineer, Photonics Reliability to lead their reliability strategy as they scale into high-volume manufacturing. This role focuses on Design for Reliability (DfR), foundry partnerships, and advanced physics-of-failure modeling to ensure the reliability of their silicon photonics-integrated circuits (PICs). The goal is to meet the stringent requirements of AI, High-Performance Computing (HPC), and cloud infrastructure customers by replacing traditional electrical I/O with breakthrough optical chiplet technology (TeraPHY™) and multi-wavelength light sources (SuperNova™).

Requirements

PhD or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Physics, Materials Science, or a related field.
10+ years of semiconductor reliability experience.
At least 5 years focused specifically on Silicon Photonics or Optoelectronics.
Deep understanding of foundry process flows and the reliability challenges unique to photonics (e.g., optical power handling, aging, and thermal management in CPO).
Proven track record in developing aging models (Arrhenius, Coffin-Manson, etc.) for semiconductor or photonic devices.
Familiarity with JEDEC, Telcordia (GR-468), and MIL-STD qualification standards.

Nice To Haves

Hands-on experience with Python for automated reliability data pipelines.
A "startup mindset"—the ability to thrive in a fast-paced environment where you must often build processes from the ground up.

Responsibilities

Integrate DfR principles into the earliest stages of the product development lifecycle (NPI).
Conduct Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) on silicon photonics components, focusing on all Optical elements.
Collaborate with the Design and Layout teams to implement design-based mitigations for known failure mechanisms like electromigration, dielectric breakdown, and optical degradation.
Serve as the technical lead for reliability with Foundries, ensuring their photonics processes meet Ayar Labs' quality benchmarks.
Define and drive wafer-level reliability (WLR) structures and test vehicles to characterize new process nodes.
Manage reliability requirements for advanced packaging and Co-Packaged Optics (CPO) with OSAT partners.
Develop and refine Physics-of-Failure (PoF) models for silicon photonics devices to predict FIT (Failures in Time) rates and DPPM.
Utilize statistical software (JMP, Minitab, or Python) to perform Weibull and Lognormal analysis on accelerated life testing (ALT) and degradation data.
Model the impact of environmental stressors (thermal cycling, humidity, high-power optical loads) on the long-term performance of the Phontics chiplet.
Lead complex Root Cause Analysis (RCA) investigations using advanced techniques such as FIB, SEM/TEM, EDX, and EFA.
Develop corrective action plans (CAPA) to resolve reliability issues discovered during qualification or in-field deployment.