SEMATECH News
SEMATECH Appoints Michael Lercel to Lead Metrology and New Nanodefect Center at UAlbany
ALBANY, N.Y. (June 25, 2012) –SEMATECH today announced that Michael Lercel has joined as senior director for nanodefectivity and metrology, leading both SEMATECH’s ongoing metrology program and a new Nanodefect Center based at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering’s (CNSE) Albany NanoTech Complex. As director of these two important and related initiatives, Lercel will serve as the technical liaison between partner companies and will be responsible for developing and executing strategies to overcome the industry’s most pressing defectivity and metrology challenges.
SEMATECH’s Nanodefect Center aims to build industry participation in detecting, modeling, characterizing, and providing solutions for defect issues as geometries shrink below the 10 nm node. The center will expand upon SEMATECH's world leading suite of metrology and analysis capabilities to 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, CMP, deposition, and cleaning.
“This latest hire brings additional expertise to SEMATECH, and in turn will raise the level of our research efforts, enhance our relationships with our partners and further strengthen SEMATECH’s commitment in identifying the challenges of future technology nodes,” said Dan Armbrust, SEMATECH’s president and CEO. “I am delighted to have a leader of Mike’s caliber, and with his extensive experiences in semiconductor process and equipment R&D and manufacturing, he brings a wealth of real-world processing knowledge that will be an invaluable asset to drive our nanodefect program at SEMATECH.”
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 fourteen years, most recently as Strategic Equipment Council Manager. 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. He also owns eleven patents and has delivered numerous presentations and papers at major industry meetings.