• Are you fascinated by fundamental understanding of processes and phenomena, such as moisture and ion transport, that drive degradation and failure processes?
• Are you our next PhD-candidate that translates this knowledge, together with other PhD's in different disciplines, into early warning principles that can be used for prognosis, health monitoring and predict degradation in chips and electronic circuits?

Job Description

Your task is to investigate and model transport processes that lead to degradation of micro-electronics, such as ion transport and moisture transport. Especially in case of power electronics with high driving forces for charged species, durability issues arise. Together with other PhD's, e.g. Delft University (on corrosion processes), predictive models should lead to a demonstrator of a health sensor linked to the developed predictive models.

The aim of this project within the circular circuits program is to lay a the foundation to develop early warning principles in micro-electronic systems; Understanding and predicting the reliability of electronic systems is generally very challenging since it involves multidisciplinary issues that are related to materials, design, and manufacturing processes, as well as, testing and application conditions. With the ambition to design extremely robust or fully reusable or recyclable microelectronics, a switch in materials used is foreseen. An important challenge is imposed by the ongoing EU legislation restricting the use of hazardous materials, like Pb, which urges the exploration and implementation of alternative materials and processes. Such a switch in materials will have a major impact on the principal processes, prognostics, and product health monitoring (PHM) having a direct impact on the durability of the product. Understanding the processes in current microelectronics using models and measurements can help to assess the impact on the major damage originating processes, allowing fast development of new future microelectronic products.

Working location

The work will be performed in the group Transport in Permeable Media (TPM) in the Applied Physics department of the Eindhoven University of Technology.

• Do you have a MSc degree in physics, and/or physical chemistry?
• Do you have experience with experimental work?
• Do you have knowledge on fluid mechanics and physical transport phenomena?
• Do you have good programming and modelling skills (Matlab, C, COMSOL)?
• Do you like to collaborate with industrial partners?
• Do you like to collaborate with other universities and PhD's?
• Motivated to develop your teaching skills and coach students.
• Fluent in spoken and written English (C1 level).

A meaningful job in a dynamic and ambitious university, in an interdisciplinary setting and within an international network. You will work on a beautiful, green campus within walking distance of the central train station. In addition, we offer you:

• Full-time employment for four years, with an intermediate evaluation (go/no-go) after nine months. You will spend 10% of your employment on teaching tasks.
• Salary and benefits (such as a pension scheme, paid pregnancy and maternity leave, partially paid parental leave) in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities, with a starting salary of € 2541,- annually growing to € 3247,- in the fourth year.  
• A year-end bonus of 8.3% and annual vacation pay of 8%.
• High-quality training programs and other support to grow into a self-aware, autonomous scientific researcher. At TU/e we challenge you to take charge of your own learning process.
• An excellent technical infrastructure, on-campus children's day care and sports facilities.
• An allowance for commuting, working from home and internet costs.
• A Staff Immigration Team and a tax compensation scheme (the 30% facility) for international candidates.