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Photo courtesy of Dr. Jay Pinson.

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Silicon Valley

When asked about his proudest engineering accomplishments, Kenneth Levy, Chairman of the Board at KLA-Tencor, discusses the efforts that went into the development of KLA Instruments’s first product, the KLA 100 Automated Photomask Inspector. He also doesn’t hesitate to applaud the technical team behind this and subsequent innovations, noting,

“I am as proud of the technical excellence of the KLA-Tencor team as I am of the products we design and build.”

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Fall 2005

Yield Management Solutions

Over the past 30 years, Levy has been at the forefront of the semiconductor capital equipment industry. In 1976, he founded KLA Instruments Corporation, which later merged with Tencor Instruments to become KLA-Tencor. Through the years, he has worked with some of the brightest minds in the industry.

For his contributions and efforts, Levy was named earlier this year to the Silicon Valley Engineering Hall of Fame. This year’s class includes Dr. Douglas Engelbart, inventor of the computer mouse; Dr. Dan Maydan, President Emeritus of Applied Materials; Dr. David Patterson, Chair of EE and Computer Science at UC Berkeley; and Dr. T.J. Rodgers, founder, President and CEO of Cypress Semiconductor. The honor, in its 16th year, celebrates the professional achievements of Silicon Valley engineers as well as their service to the profession and their contributions to the community.

World-class talents drive innovation The road to developing the KLA 100 automated photomask inspector was marked by two major marketing/engineering realizations that proved to be fundamental in the development of the company, according to Levy. First, there was the recognition that defect density on photomasks was beginning to limit semiconductor manufacturing yields and that the imagery on the photomask was becoming too complex for people to inspect. Knowing that newly developed sensors and semiconductor devices would enable a solution to this challenge to be engineered, Levy’s team seized the market opportunity to create the photomask inspection tool.

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Engineering Hall of Fame The second major realization came with the awareness that the skills amassed in designing and manufacturing photomask inspection systems could be applied to automating wafer inspection. Explains Levy, “To accomplish both of these innovations, I realized that it would take a world-class team of technical people to succeed. We were fortunate to assemble a great team in 1977. We have an even better team today.”

Smaller devices will mean greater challenges ahead Levy’s passion for semiconductor-related technologies continues to be fueled by shrinking device geometries.

“When I entered the semiconductor capital equipment field in 1969, advanced geometries were well over 10 µm,” he notes. “At that time, it was almost universally accepted that the physics of optical litho-graphy would carry us to 1 µm and then run out of gas. Today, we know that optical lithography will take us below 0.06 µm.”

Levy continues: “As lithography allows smaller and smaller devices, controlling the semiconductor manufacturing process becomes increasingly more difficult. That puts pressure on us to push the capabilities of our systems to detect and measure ever smaller artifacts and dimensions. It’s a great challenge for us, in all of our business segments.”

Pearls of wisdom One of the objectives of the Silicon Valley Engineering Council, which presents the Hall of Fame award, is to promote career development of engineers and other technologists. In his leadership role, Levy offers to new engineers some simple yet compelling advice:

“Love your work. Engineering is as much a passion as it is a profession.”

“Continue to increase your skill level. The skills that you have today will not be sufficient to sustain you in the future.”

“Work on teams where you can learn from other members.

We get more satisfaction and become more valuable when we work on teams where the other members are exceptional.”

“Volunteer to work on the tough projects. You will learn more and find greater satisfaction from succeeding on projects where ‘the more cautious’ fear to go.”

When he considers the legacy that he’ll leave behind as one of the industry’s renowned technologists, Levy turns the spotlight on the company that he has helped build. Says Levy, “In 2050, I would like people to look at KLA-Tencor and say, ‘That’s a great company. It has made a major contribution to society by continually producing technically advanced products, and, because of that, it has become one of the most successful companies in the world.”

Fall 2005

www.kla-tencor.com/magazine

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