Principal Engineer, Reliability

Ayar Labs, Inc.; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 200,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Ayar Labs is seeking a senior reliability leader to own the reliability roadmap for our silicon photonics platform and mixed-signal EICs, bridging R&D and high-volume manufacturing. You will guide chiplet co-design, foundry process qualification, and system-level reliability at the PIC-EIC interface to exceed the demands of AI and data-center customers.

In this role you will build physics-of-failure models, drive Weibull analyses, and partner with design, packaging, and OSAT teams.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in a relevant engineering/physical science field.
• 10+ years of semiconductor reliability experience, 5+ years in silicon photonics or mixed-signal reliability.
• Experience with photonics and CMOS/mixed-signal processes and reliability challenges.
• Familiarity with JEDEC, Telcordia, MIL-STD qualification standards.

Responsibilities

• Own the reliability roadmap for silicon photonics and mixed-signal EICs.
• Lead Design for Reliability activities and FMEA across PIC-EIC interfaces.
• Collaborate with foundries/OSAT on reliability structures and test vehicles.
• Develop PoF models and perform accelerated life testing analysis.

Skills

Weibull analysis

Arrhenius modeling

Python for lab automation

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Physics, Materials Science, or related field

PhD or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Physics, Materials Science, or related field

Tools

Python

JMP

Minitab

Job description

Location: San Jose (on-site)

Ayar Labs is shattering AI data bottlenecks by moving data at the speed of light. As pioneers of co-packaged optics (CPO), we are using light instead of electricity to move data faster, further, and with a fraction of the energy needed to fuel the explosive growth of AI models.

Backed by industry giants like NVIDIA, AMD and Intel and manufactured in partnership with the world’s leading semiconductor ecosystem, Ayar Labs’ co-packaged optics solution is key to unleashing next-generation AI scale-up architectures.

In this high-impact leadership role, you will be the primary architect of the reliability roadmap spanning our silicon photonics platform and the mixed-signal EICs that drive it. You will bridge the gap between R&D and high-volume manufacturing, ensuring that our optical I/O solutions — PIC and EIC together — exceed the stringent requirements of the world’s leading AI and data center customers. Your expertise will directly influence chiplet co-design, foundry process qualification, and system-level reliability at the PIC-EIC interface.

Key Responsibilities

• Product Qualification & Corrective Action follow up
  • Own the execution and plan for the production qualification products, which includes silicon photonics and mixed-signal EIC components. Complying with JEDEC, Telcordia (GR-468), and MIL-STD standards..
  • Develop corrective action plans (CAPA) to resolve reliability issues discovered during qualification or in-field deployment, partnering with failure analysis, operation and design teams as needed.
• Design for Reliability (DfR) — PIC and EIC
  • Integrate DfR principles into the earliest stages of the product development lifecycle (NPI) for both the photonics chiplet and its mixed-signal EIC.
  • Conduct Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) across the PIC-EIC system, covering optical elements (waveguides, ring resonators, modulators, photodetectors) and mixed-signal circuit blocks (drivers, TIAs, ADC/DAC, control loops).
  • Collaborate with photonics design, analog/mixed-signal IC design, and layout teams to implement design-based mitigations for known failure mechanisms, including electromigration, dielectric breakdown, hot-carrier injection, NBTI/PBTI, and optical degradation.
  • Define reliability guardbands and design rules at the PIC-EIC interface (co-packaged optics), where electrical and optical degradation modes interact.
• Foundry & Ecosystem Reliability
  • Serve as the technical lead for reliability with foundry partners across both silicon photonics and CMOS/mixed-signal process nodes, ensuring their processes meet Ayar Labs’ quality benchmarks.
  • Define and drive wafer-level reliability (WLR) structures and test vehicles to characterize new photonics and mixed-signal EIC process nodes.
  • Manage reliability requirements for advanced packaging and Co-Packaged Optics (CPO) with OSAT partners, covering both optical and electrical interconnects.
• Advanced Reliability Modeling
  • Develop and refine Physics-of-Failure (PoF) models for silicon photonics devices and mixed-signal EIC circuits 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 for both PIC and EIC populations.
  • Model the impact of environmental stressors — thermal cycling, humidity, high-power optical loads, and electrical stress — on the long-term performance of the combined photonics-EIC system.
  • Build unified reliability degradation and margin models that capture the interaction between optical link margin and EIC circuit aging.

Required Qualifications

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Physics, Materials Science, or a related field.
• Experience: 10+ years of semiconductor reliability experience, with at least 5 years focused specifically on Silicon Photonics and/or Mixed-Signal EIC reliability.
• Mixed-Signal: Working knowledge of mixed-signal IC design and the reliability mechanisms unique to it (electromigration, HCI, NBTI/PBTI, ESD, latch-up) in addition to photonics-specific mechanisms.
• Foundry Knowledge: Deep understanding of foundry process flows and the reliability challenges unique to photonics and CMOS/mixed-signal processes, including optical power handling, aging, and thermal management in CPO.
• Modeling Mastery: Proven track record developing aging models (Arrhenius, Coffin-Manson, etc.) for semiconductor and photonic devices.
• Standards Expertise: Familiarity with JEDEC, Telcordia (GR-468), and MIL-STD qualification standard and the Physics behind these requirements
• Computer skills: Proficiency in using Phyton to control lab equipment and DUT

Preferred Qualifications

• Education: PhD or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Physics, Materials Science, or a related field.
• PhD degree with 15+ years of relevant experience
• Hands-on experience with Python for automated reliability data pipelines.
• Prior experience co-qualifying an optical chiplet alongside its companion EIC in a co-packaged optics (CPO) architecture.
• Demonstrated leadership experienceExperience in reliability issues with advanced silicon technologies (7
• 3nm), advanced packaging (CPO/COWOS) and FAU reliability
• Direct external customer interaction experience

Salary range: $200,000 - $260,000

Ayer Labs is an affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer and is strongly committed to all policies which will afford equal opportunity employment to all qualified persons without regard to age, sex, national origin, race, color, ethnicity, creed, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. It is the policy of Ayar Labs to provide reasonable accommodation when requested by a qualified applicant or employee with a disability, unless such accommodation would cause an undue hardship. Veterans are more than welcome and encouraged to apply.