The Emerging Young Leader Award recognizes SEMI member company engineers under 40 years old who not only demonstrate outstanding leadership qualities of a team that attained significant milestones at their company, but also celebrates their substantial contributions to the semiconductor industry.

Avinash, has worked at KLA since 2017, led technical teams in Singapore and the United States to address complex technical challenges to meet the short and steep ramp of a strategic product during the COVID-19 pandemic.

His role was pivotal in meeting business revenue and growth targets in the eBeam product line during a very critical period. In 2021, Avinash received the Leadership Award at the eBeam division’s quarterly all-hands meeting – “a special testimonial,” he says, “of the great work done by the manufacturing team here in Singapore.”

“Avinash embraced his responsibility as project owner to proactively coordinate with various functional teams and drive toward addressing some of the most critical challenges needed to meet shipping commitments for some of the new product introductions in eBeam,” says Eugene Yap, operations and manufacturing engineering director, KLA Singapore. “He has also worked tirelessly over long hours to address any unforeseen issues that come our way, and it is most impressive that he is still able to manage his positive attitude and personality during these difficult times.”

In addition to meeting KLA business goals, Avinash made significant contributions to advancing STEM (science, technology, engineering the mathematics) education as a guest lecturer for Master of Science courses at the National University of Singapore. Through constant engagements internally and externally, he works to increase interest in Singapore’s semiconductor industry among undergraduates and postgraduates.