
Silicon Validation/Emulation Design Engineer
Required skills
- Silicon Validation
- Emulation
- Wireless SoCs
- hardware accelerators
- ARM-based sub-systems
- pre-silicon hardware validation
- Cadence Palladium
- system integration
- hardware validation
- SoC architects
Nice to have
- Synopsys ZeBu
- equivalent emulation platforms
- synthesis for emulation
- memory compilation
- I/O abstraction
- Git
Role summary
Seeking a Silicon Validation/Emulation Design Engineer to join a team developing Wireless SoCs. Responsibilities include building and maintaining Cadence Palladium emulation environments, performing system-level and IP-level debug, developing automation scripts, and optimizing emulation model performance. The role requires close collaboration with architects, RTL designers, and verification engineers to ensure thorough pre-silicon validation. Experience with emulation platforms, debug methodologies, RTL design concepts, and scripting is essential. Wireless SoC application experience is strongly preferred.
Description
In this role, you'll be responsible for the following: - Building and maintaining Palladium emulation environments, including compile flows, netlist preparation, memory modeling, and clock/reset configurations. - System-level debug and root cause analysis of complex hardware issues on the emulation platform. - IP-level debug and validation, working closely with IP owners to isolate and resolve design issues. - Development and implementation of automation aids, flows, and scripts to improve Palladium build efficiency, debug turnaround, and platform utilization. - Performance profiling and optimization of emulation models to maximize execution speed. - Collaboration with multi-disciplinary groups to make sure emulation deliverables are on schedule and support critical program milestones.
Minimum Qualifications
BS and a minimum of 10 years relevant industry experience
Preferred Qualifications
Proven experience with Cadence Palladium (or equivalent emulation platforms such as Synopsys ZeBu), including build flows, compile optimization, and platform bring-up Strong debugging skills with experience in system-level and IP-level debug on emulation platforms Experience with emulation compile flows, including synthesis for emulation, memory compilation, clock modeling, and I/O abstraction Proficiency in debug tools and methodologies (waveform analysis, signal probing, assertion-based debug, transactors) Solid understanding of RTL design concepts, SoC architectures, ARM-based subsystems, and standard bus protocols (AXI, AHB, APB) Experience developing and maintaining automation scripts (Python, Tcl, Perl, Shell) to streamline emulation workflows Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with ability to debug complex system-level issues Experience with Wireless SoC applications (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cellular) - strongly preferred Excellent communication and collaboration skills to work effectively across functional teams Experience with version control systems (Git, Perforce) and CI/CD integration for emulation flows
Sample Apple interview questions
- 1
Design a typeahead box for a search engine
system designmedium - 2
Design a rate limiter
system designmedium - 3
Architect a key-value store for distributed systems.
system designmedium - 4
Design a system to schedule jobs in a distributed environment
system designmedium - 5
What is an API and how does it work?
technicalmedium
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