ASIC Design Engineer — Neural Engine DMA

Apple Inc.; Sunnyvale (CA); On-site; USD 129,000 - 195,000; Full time

Job summary

Apple Inc. is seeking an ASIC Design Engineer for the ANE DMA Design team to contribute to high-performance data movement between memory and the Apple Neural Engine. The role involves front-end design, RTL development, and collaboration across architecture, verification, and design teams.

You will address synthesis, timing closure, power analysis, and linting while ensuring design correctness and adherence to performance targets for on-device AI capabilities.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering or related field.
• Familiarity with Verilog/SystemVerilog and digital design fundamentals.

Responsibilities

• Design DMA subsystem blocks from microarchitecture through tapeout.
• Write RTL structured for synthesis, timing, power, and area goals.
• Perform front-end implementation tasks: synthesis, timing closure, linting, and equivalence checks.
• Collaborate with architecture teams to meet performance and bandwidth targets.
• Coordinate with verification teams to ensure functional correctness of the design.

Skills

Digital design fundamentals

RTL concepts

SystemVerilog

Verilog

Education

Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering or related field

Tools

AMBA (AXI/AHB/APB)

Python

Job description

Computational photography, live language translation, and countless other on-device AIcapabilities depend on moving enormous amounts of data between memory and compute atexactly the right time. As part of our Silicon Engineering Group, you will helpbuild the high-performance DMA engines responsible for moving model weights and activationtensors between the memory subsystem and the Apple Neural Engine.In this role, you will collaborate closely with architecture and verification teamsacross the full front-end design cycle. The work you contributeships in Apple products used by billions of people every day.

Description

As an ASIC Design Engineer on the ANE DMA Design team, you will contribute to the designof DMA subsystem blocks from microarchitecture specification through tapeout. High-performance DMA involves hard problems in data movement, throughput, and correctness. In this front-end design role, your work will include:

• Writing well-parameterized RTL structured for correct synthesis, clean timing, and lowpower, along with assertions and cover points that encode design intent and ensureverification completeness.
• Executing front-end implementation tasks: synthesis, timing closure, area and poweranalysis, linting, and logic equivalence checks.
• Collaborating with fellow designers and architecture teams to understand designrequirements, contribute to micro-architectural specifications, and develop solutionsthat meet performance, power, and area targets.
• Working closely with design verification and formal verification teams to ensurefunctional correctness: reviewing test plans, debugging failures, and ensuring thedesign's intended behavior is fully exercised.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelors Degree plus 0 years of industry experience

Preferred Qualifications

• Familiarity with Verilog or SystemVerilog and core digital design fundamentals: finite
• state machines, pipelining, parallelism, and timing.
• Some exposure to on-chip bus protocols such as AMBA (AXI, AHB, APB).
• Interest in or exposure to system-level concepts: how data moves through a SoC, flow
• control between producers and consumers, memory system latency and bandwidth trade-offs,
• and how hardware and software divide responsibilities at system boundaries.
• Background in or curiosity about high-bandwidth domains: networking, image and video
• processing, multimedia, or AI/ML.
• Familiarity with scripting languages (Python, Perl, Tcl) for design automation.
• Clear technical writing skills and the habits of asking good questions, flagging issues
• early, and contributing constructively in design reviews.

At Apple, base pay is one part of our total compensation package and is determined within a range. This provides the opportunity to progress as you grow and develop within a role. The base pay range for this role is between $129,300 and $194,700, and your base pay will depend on your skills, qualifications, experience, and location.

• Apple employees also have the opportunity to become an Apple shareholder through participation in Apple’s discretionary employee stock programs.
• Apple employees are eligible for discretionary restricted stock unit awards, and can purchase Apple stock at a discount if voluntarily participating in Apple’s Employee Stock Purchase Plan.
• Comprehensive medical and dental coverage,
• Retirement benefits,
• A range of discounted products and free services,
• Reimbursement for formal education related to advancing your career at Apple, reimbursement for certain educational expenses — including tuition.
• Discretionary bonuses or commission payments as well as relocation.

Note: Apple benefit, compensation and employee stock programs are subject to eligibility requirements and other terms of the applicable plan or program.

Apple is an equal opportunity employer that is committed to inclusion and diversity. We seek to promote equal opportunity for all applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, Veteran status, or other legally protected characteristics.

At Apple, we believe accessibility is a fundamental human right. You’ll find that idea reflected in everything here — in our culture, our benefits and our digital tools. By welcoming as many perspectives as possible, we help you build a career where you feel like you belong.