Senior Wiresaw Engineer

Role Purpose

We are seeking a highly experienced, hands-on Wire Saw and Wafer Manufacturing Engineer to serve as the technical authority for ingot conversion and wafering operations in a solar wafer manufacturing facility.

This is a manufacturing-floor role for an individual who works directly with wire saws, operators, technicians, maintenance, process engineering, quality, and upstream/downstream manufacturing teams. The successful candidate will improve wafer yield, quality, throughput, equipment uptime, consumable utilization, kerf loss, breakage performance, process stability, and manufacturing cost.

The ideal candidate has deep practical experience with silicon ingot cropping, squaring, grinding, wire sawing, wafer cleaning, drying, inspection, sorting, handling, and packaging. The candidate must be comfortable working directly on production equipment, observing process behavior, adjusting and validating recipes, troubleshooting failures, leading trials, and sustaining improvements in a high-volume wafer manufacturing environment.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide hands-on technical leadership for silicon ingot conversion and wafer manufacturing, with particular expertise in wire-saw operation, wafering processes, equipment setup, troubleshooting, process optimization, and production support.
• Develop, optimize, and control wire-saw recipes and critical process parameters to improve wafer thickness, TTV, bow, warp, surface and edge quality, geometry, breakage performance, cutting yield, kerf loss, consumable usage, cycle time, and overall conversion cost.
• Lead troubleshooting and root-cause analysis for wire breaks, cutting instability, wafer breakage, dimensional variation, contamination, process excursions, equipment downtime, and other wafering defects using production data, equipment trends, metrology, defect analysis, and downstream performance feedback.
• Establish robust manufacturing controls, including equipment recipes, operating windows, setup instructions, first-article requirements, in-process controls, inspection criteria, reaction plans, preventive maintenance requirements, and standard work. Implement and sustain corrective and preventive actions through documented process controls and operator training.
• Partner with equipment engineering and maintenance teams to improve reliability and process capability, including wire-feed and tension systems, guide systems, table motion, spindles, slurry/coolant delivery, filtration, temperature control, sensors, vision systems, material handling, calibration, preventive maintenance, and equipment recovery.
• Lead process development, experimentation, and qualification activities, including structured trials, DOEs, capability studies, validation plans, equipment commissioning, and qualification of new or upgraded wire saws, cleaning systems, inspection equipment, automation, and critical consumables.
• Support new product and technology introduction, developing manufacturing-ready processes for new ingot sizes, wafer thicknesses and geometries, crystal types, resistivity ranges, and customer requirements, including advanced technologies such as ultra-thin and large-format wafers, low-kerf and diamond-wire cutting, automated handling, advanced cleaning, and in-line metrology.
• Serve as the site technical subject-matter expert and cross-functional partner for wafering, working closely with crystal growth, shaping, cleaning, inspection, quality, product engineering, maintenance, suppliers, and downstream cell manufacturing. Train production personnel on equipment operation, material handling, defect recognition, troubleshooting, process controls, and new-process readiness.

Experiences/Education - Required

• Bachelor’s degree in Materials Science, Mechanical Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Physics, or a related technical discipline; equivalent extensive, directly relevant industry experience may be considered.
• 10+ years of progressive engineering or technical manufacturing experience in high-volume, precision manufacturing environments, including significant hands-on responsibility for process optimization, equipment troubleshooting, yield improvement, and production support.
• 8+ years of hands-on experience in silicon wafer manufacturing, ingot conversion, wire sawing, precision slicing, semiconductor wafering, or a comparable high-volume precision-materials manufacturing environment.
• Demonstrated expert-level understanding of silicon wire-saw processes, preferably including diamond-wire sawing and associated wafer cleaning and inspection operations.
• Proven ability to independently troubleshoot and optimize wire-saw recipes, wire-management systems, cutting parameters, consumables, equipment performance, and wafer-quality outcomes on the manufacturing floor.
• Strong knowledge of wafer quality metrics and failure modes, including thickness, TTV, bow, warp, kerf loss, surface damage, edge quality, breakage, cleanliness, and contamination.
• Demonstrated success improving wafer yield, throughput, first-pass yield, silicon utilization, consumable cost, equipment uptime, and process stability.
• Experience interpreting equipment trends, production data, dimensional metrology, inspection data, defect paretos, breakage records, and downstream performance feedback.
• Experience using structured problem-solving methods such as DOE, SPC, PFMEA, 8D, A3, root-cause analysis, and corrective/preventive action.
• Ability and willingness to spend the majority of the workday working directly on the manufacturing floor.

Experiences/Education - Desired

• Direct experience with high-volume diamond-wire saw equipment used for silicon solar-wafer manufacturing.
• Experience with large-format, thin, or ultra-thin silicon wafers and high-efficiency solar-cell product requirements.
• Experience with in-line wafer metrology, including thickness, TTV, bow, warp, geometry, surface inspection, crack detection, contamination monitoring, and automated sorting.
• Experience with wafer-cleaning and drying systems, chemical handling, water-quality control, recycling/reclamation systems, and slurry/coolant filtration.
• Experience leading new equipment installation, equipment commissioning, production ramp-up, technology transfer, or new-product introduction.
• Familiarity with crystal growth, ingot shaping, wafer recycling, and downstream solar-cell manufacturing requirements.
• Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, DOE, or equivalent continuous-improvement training.
• Experience using MES, SCADA, equipment historian systems, SPC tools, JMP, Minitab, Python, SQL, or advanced Excel for process analysis.