DCU Alumni Awardee Zia Karim

Zia Karim is Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Yield Engineering Systems (YES) in Fremont, California.. YES designs and manufactures process equipment for the semiconductor, power semiconductor, and life sciences industries

Zia came to DCU from Bangladesh in 1989 and moved to the US in 1993 having graduated with a PhD.

He first worked in a rapid thermal processing company before joining the  Japanese consumer electronics company Sharp where, he said, he “did exactly the same work as in the PhD at DCU”.

After working for LAM Research, Applied Materials and AIXTRON prior to his current role, he is now recognised as a world-class researcher and innovator in the semiconductor industry. He has been a pioneer in positioning W/WSi CVD, Low K PECVD, High K ALD, III-V MOCVD processes, backend interconnect processes for semiconductor and compound semiconductor devices and has authored more than 50 published papers and holds 22 patents. 

Zia demonstrated his entrepreneurial leadership through his participation in the acquisition of Yield Engineering Systems. Founded in 1980, YES for many years was a small, R&D-oriented business making lab tools. From 2018, Zia, along with the new leadership team, led the effort to change and establish a winning and growth culture in the business, resulting in 10X growth in only 4 years. 

Zia has also kept continuous contact with faculties and colleagues as well as Alumni Association of DCU. ZHe is a leading organizer/Committee Member of IEEE, SMTA, and Electrochemical Society (ECS) conferences. 

Ph.D., Electronic Engineering, 1993