Michael Lercel was appointed senior director for nanodefectivity and metrology for both Sematech’s ongoing metrology program and a new Nanodefect Center based at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering’s Albany NanoTech Complex, Sematech announced. In his role at these two related initiatives, Lercel will serve as the technical liaison between partner companies and will be responsible for developing and executing strategies to overcome defectivity and metrology challenges. The Nanodefect Center, which aims to build industry participation in detecting, modeling, characterizing and providing solutions for defect issues as geometries shrink below the 10-nm node, will expand upon Sematech’s metrology and analysis capabilities to investigate the generation, propagation, removal and impact of defects generated by equipment and materials used in semiconductor processes. Prior to joining Sematech, Lercel served as the senior director of extreme- ultraviolet product marketing at Cymer. Before that, he held numerous lithography-related positions at IBM. Sematech is an international consortium of semiconductor device, equipment and materials manufacturers. It helps its members and partners address critical industry transitions, drive technical consensus, and improve manufacturing productivity. For more information, visit: www.sematech.org