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Applied Materials

Builds equipment for chip and display factories

Optical Wafer Inspection

Full-TimeUpdated on 10/15/2026
No salary listed
Mid, Senior
Master's, PhD
Hwaseong-si, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea
HybridInitial travel of 1–2 months and frequent headquarters visits (2–3 times per year) are required; travel is approximately 20%.
Field ServiceEquipment Field Service

About the job

Requirements
  • A Master's degree in Physics, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related field, combined with a minimum of 3 years of relevant hands-on system development experience, or a doctoral degree in a related field; entry-level candidates with a Ph.D. are encouraged to apply.
  • High analytical skills and the ability to research, analyze, and understand complex system problems.
  • Ability to work independently in an open environment and efficiently manage one's own work.
  • Ability to work in a multidisciplinary team and lead without authority.
  • Ability to write clear technical documents and presentations for management and customers.
  • Fluent verbal and written communication in English.
  • Capability for initial travel of 1–2 months and willingness for frequent visits to headquarters (2–3 times per year).
Responsibilities
  • Provide technical leadership for OPWI systems support and solutions for complex task-force activities, including tool-to-tool matching, tool stability, throughput, accuracy, and focus.
  • Resolve customers’ day-to-day production issues to support smooth fab flow; troubleshoot difficult problems and perform hardware-debugging root cause analysis to identify tool or module problems.
  • Participate in account projects and task forces, supporting evaluation of tools for new technologies and features at customer sites in collaboration with the local account team.
  • Perform fault-isolation tests to assist with problem resolution and customer situation management; clearly document problem statements and collect data for issues that cannot be solved on site.
  • Investigate detection limitations in complex scenarios and find or develop optimal tool configurations and workarounds.
  • Communicate and collaborate with customers about tool-performance issues and resolution plans; resolve issues and provide appropriate reports to customers.
  • Build collaborative customer relationships and identify high-value problems requiring PDC attention; serve as the customer-facing focal point for technical system issues, presentations, and customer collaboration.
  • Participate in the R&D Systems team to develop new capabilities and optimize them for specific customer needs.
  • Investigate root causes and C&F for customer challenges and chronic issues, including tool-to-tool matching and gap defects, and contribute to preparing tool-management standard operating procedures with the OPWI systems group, continuous improvement programs, and the technical roadmap for next-generation systems.
  • Determine optimal system-parameter conditions under PDC system and physics guidance to achieve tool performance and diagnostic and verification capability that satisfy customer specifications.
  • Collaborate with PDC technology and systems teams on individual tasks and extensive on-tool experiments using customer wafers to optimize the current platform and develop the next-generation platform.
  • Serve as the direct link between R&D and the field/customer for data and solution transfer and dialogue; may lead on-site data collection and analysis to inform future development.
Desired Qualifications
  • Prior work experience with advanced optical inspection systems.
  • Experience in light-matter simulations.
  • Broad knowledge of semiconductor processes.
  • Experience in semiconductor organizations.
  • Capability and programming experience with MATLAB, Python, or similar tools.

About the company

Applied Materials designs and builds precision machines that chipmakers and display manufacturers use to form, shape and inspect thin layers of material. Its platforms handle steps such as depositing films and removing unwanted material, helping chipmakers create transistors and wiring at atomic scale. Customers include makers of logic chips and memory, as well as manufacturers of advanced displays. The company earns money from equipment sales, replacement parts and services, and factory software that schedules production and monitors manufacturing processes. Applied Materials was founded in 1967 and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California.

Company Size

10,001+

Company Stage

IPO

Headquarters

Santa Clara, California

Founded

1967

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Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • Installed equipment brings repeat business: Applied Global Services sells long-term service agreements, replacement parts and equipment upgrades.
  • Sales are expanding: Applied's August 2026 report showed fiscal Q3 revenue of $9.12 billion, up 25% yearly.
  • Employees join profitable operations: Applied reported $3.08 billion of operating profit for fiscal Q3 in August 2026.

What critics are saying

  • Singapore manufacturing hires face late shifts: Applied's live engineering posting specifies 4 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. schedules.
  • Export compliance has real costs: Applied and its Korea subsidiary settled a $252 million penalty in February 2026.
  • Sales depend on China access: Applied's December 2025 filing attributed 30% of fiscal 2025 revenue to customers there.

What makes Applied Materials unique

  • Applied combines manufacturing steps under vacuum: its Endura copper platform integrates seven processes to protect delicate material interfaces.
  • Factory software reaches beyond chips: Applied SmartFactory serves battery and pharmaceutical manufacturers alongside semiconductor plants.
  • Research targets future chip generations: Applied's EPIC partners work on technology three to four generations ahead of production.

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Benefits

Health Insurance

Dental Insurance

Vision Insurance

Life Insurance

Disability Insurance

Relocation Assistance

Performance Bonus

Stock Options

Flexible Work Hours

Growth & Insights and Company News

Headcount

6 month growth

0%

1 year growth

-1%

2 year growth

-1%
Yahoo Finance
Oct 13th, 2026
Applied Materials targets 54% gross margin and $12B services revenue by 2030 on AI demand

Applied Materials (NASDAQ:AMAT) expects to gain more than two percentage points of wafer-fab-equipment market share by 2030, driven by demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. The company outlined its strategy at the SEMICON West technology breakfast. Chief executive officer Gary Dickerson said AI spending is concentrating in leading-edge logic, DRAM memory and advanced packaging, which should make up about 75% of incremental industry growth. For 2030, Applied targets a 54% non-GAAP gross margin, a 40% operating margin and more than $12 billion in services revenue. It expects more than $1 billion in high-bandwidth-memory packaging revenue this year. The company plans to more than double its laboratory and manufacturing capacity, and return 80% to 100% of free cash flow to shareholders.

Yahoo Finance
Oct 12th, 2026
Applied Materials stock prices in 36.3% sales growth for fiscal 2027

Applied Materials stock trades at 39.5 times adjusted earnings for the past twelve months, despite sales growth of just 7.8% over the period. The price leans on forecasts that sales will rise 36.3% between fiscal 2026 and fiscal 2027, with profit growing 40.0%. Net margin is expected to widen from 27% in fiscal 2025 to 31% in fiscal 2027. On those estimates, the stock costs 38.7 times fiscal 2026 profit and 27.7 times fiscal 2027 profit. Sales growth reached 24.8% in the most recent quarter, up from declines earlier in the year. Management said clean room space at customers' factories will limit shipments in 2027, and costs could squeeze margins. The company presents to investors on October 13, 2026, at SEMICON West.

Fox Business
Oct 12th, 2026
Applied Materials CEO calls AI economy's biggest inflection point as $5B EPIC Center opens

Applied Materials chief executive officer Gary Dickerson called AI the biggest economic "inflection" point of our lifetime. He spoke about the company's $5 billion EPIC Center in Silicon Valley, its research into next-generation chips, and surging demand for AI chips. Dickerson made the remarks on "The Claman Countdown.

Yahoo Finance
Oct 12th, 2026
Applied Materials opens $5B EPIC Center, the world's largest chip equipment R&D facility

Applied Materials unveiled its Equipment and Process Innovation and Commercialization (EPIC) Center in Sunnyvale, California, on October 12, 2026. The $5 billion facility is billed as the world's largest dedicated to collaborative semiconductor process technology and equipment R&D. Chipmakers, systems companies, equipment partners and universities will work alongside Applied's engineers. Founding partners are TSMC, Intel, Samsung Electronics, Micron and SK hynix. Broadcom, Advantest, SCREEN, KIOXIA and Besi join as innovation partners, along with five research universities. The 600,000-square-foot building holds nearly four acres of cleanroom space. It aims to remove the handoffs between materials research, equipment development and pilot production, speeding new chip technologies to volume manufacturing for the AI era. Applied expects capital spending to scale to about $5 billion as customer projects begin.

Yahoo Finance
Oct 12th, 2026
SK Hynix beats Applied Materials for 2026: 7x forward P/E and 46.8% revenue growth

Applied Materials and SK Hynix both sit at the heart of the AI chip boom, but a comparison of the two favours the memory maker for 2026. SK Hynix leads on growth, valuation and recent profitability. In fiscal 2025, SK Hynix revenue rose about 46.8% to nearly $72.5 billion, with net income near $32.1 billion. Applied Materials posted revenue of nearly $28.4 billion, up about 4.4%, and net income of about $7.0 billion. SK Hynix trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 7x, against 41x for Applied Materials. Its operating margin has topped 50% in recent quarters. Risks differ. Applied Materials faces export controls and settled a $252 million penalty over unauthorised exports. SK Hynix faces volatile memory prices and rivals Samsung Electronics and Micron Technology.