Appointed Vice President
Head of Core R&D, Engineering
Semiconductor Products Group
Applied Materials, Inc.
Dr. Philip Kraus is appointed vice president of Engineering and the Head of Core R&D for the Semiconductor Products Group at Applied Materials, Inc. He oversees the development of innovative technologies and prototype products for the semiconductor wafer fab equipment market.
An industry expert in both reactor design and materials synthesis, Dr. Kraus has championed new processing capability by working at the intersection of these two fields. He has led the development of new capabilities in plasma treatments, large-area evaporation, reactive ion etch, atomic layer deposition, chemical vapor deposition, and physical vapor deposition systems.
Dr. Kraus rejoined Applied Materials in 2015 after 10 years working in start-up companies across various industries that leverage solid-state physics. From 2012 to 2015, he was CEO of Ultora, a manufacturer of carbon nanotube electrochemical energy storage devices. Prior to that he held leadership roles at materials synthesis, light emitting diodes, and thin film photovoltaics companies. Previously at Applied Materials from 1999 to 2006, Dr. Kraus developed FEOL plasma nitridation systems—the first widespread use of plasma processing in transistor formation.
Dr. Kraus is the inventor of more than 20 issued patents and the author of more than 40 publications. He earned a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Minnesota and a B.S. in Engineering Science from the Pennsylvania State University.