What inspired you to become an engineer?
When I was a child, my older brother and I used to buy cheap toy cars. When they broke, we would try to fix them, with no instructions or diagrams, just take them to pieces and see what was wrong. We couldn’t fix them all, but we took the working parts from maybe four cars together to make two working cars. That’s where I found my interest. From there, whenever I faced an issue, I applied the same philosophy: figure out the root cause and then try to design a way to efficiently solve the issue.

What was your first major project with Nexperia?
Well, I established the Material Characterisation systems for the whole company, which is still in use today. This allows us to easily determine, allocate and retrieve the properties of the materials we use, and it was developed way ahead of the curve. We were competing the first version as the automotive industry heightened their requirements, increased the testing cycles and data needed from suppliers, we were also looking for ways to perfectly seal our packages—zero delamination, even withstanding moisture tests. So having full data on all materials was exactly what we needed as basis to achieve those heightened quality requirements. Especially when we had no good reference points in the market, we had to do it ourselves by thorough development, to make us ready in good time, before it was even needed.

How do you go about building a package for a new Nexperia product?
Semiconductors are more than just electronic devices that perform advanced functions. There is also the back-end operation, the packaging technology that enables those product functions in robust electronic packages. For me, this is what material development is all about, analysing and understanding the materials, designing the perfect packaging solutions to give our products the competitive edge. This is what I love.

When you’re building a package, with different materials and layers, you have to understand the properties of each layer. Changing the material in one layer will have an influence on the other layers and overall package performance. Balancing material properties requires very careful calculation, accurate work and delicate application, which is where we use the materials and simulations databases that we have built.

We try to understand and optimise the materials—the whole system—in terms of testing, in terms of package and product creation, industry quality requirements. This applies to simulation, to test builds, to the final package, it is all geared towards fulfilling customer requirements, and making Nexperia’s product better than the competition.

How does career progression work within Nexperia?
There is a very clear road for the technical community here, the Technical Career Ladder, with the details and skills needed, the requirements for advancement. In my own career, I was able to always look at the requirements for the next step, identify the gaps and work on filling those gaps for the next phase, the next assessment. This helped to give me direction and development for growth and progression.

Is there a mentoring system in the company?
Over the years, as I have worked up through Nexperia, I have learned from others, to become Assistant Engineer then Principal Engineer and Senior Principal Engineer. Those who came before me passed on their experience, and this is what I do now for those on their way up the ladder. Experience sharing is very important, working with a mentor, technical sharing, and Nexperia has the environment and structure for that. We have technical forums and committees, places and databases where engineers can learn very quickly, platforms and events for technical sharing.

And now you are a mentor to others?
Of course, now I help to bring up younger engineers, those who are interested in the materials development side of semiconductors. In my role now, I am able to feed back into the technical community, to guide and support younger engineers, organizing initiatives that support the teams and inspire them to aim for the next steps in their careers.

What advice would you give to new engineers, or those new to Nexperia?
When I was a Senior Engineer, I began mentoring new engineers, sharing my experience and my journey, looking at career milestones and how I reached them, how I challenged myself to continue growing. And I always tell these young engineers, you need to find your interest first, because interest is the best teacher.

Once you find your interest, identify your strengths and start to build your core competence, your self-motivation. Then follow that path because that’s where happiness is. And I tell them to use the Technical Career ladder on that path, to identify the metrics, look at the criteria and the gaps they need to fill to advance on their journey.

What do you love most about what you do?
I love what I do because I get to bring order, to use rules and principles and find the best ways to describe and explain the behaviour of matter and materials. I love my job because I get to answer customer queries, working to find root causes and ways to fix issues precisely. Whether the challenge is from an external or internal party, I challenge myself that nothing is impossible.

This is why I tell my team, look at the baseline and use data to tell your story. There will always be pressure to deliver, internally and externally. But work with your data, stick to the baseline, look for a effective way to figure out the root cause and find a simple and optimum solution.