Physical Design Engineer

Socionext US; Milpitas (CA); Hybrid; USD 130,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401(k)

401(k) matching

Employee assistance program

Flexible spending account

Health insurance

Health savings account

Life insurance

Paid time off

Referral program

Vision insurance

Job summary

Socionext America Inc. is seeking a hands-on Physical Design Engineer to work on challenging ASIC/SoC tapeouts. You will collaborate with customers, frontend and integration teams to deliver robust designs through pre-layout timing, floorplanning, and sign-off stages.

The role requires 8+ years of ASIC physical design experience, scripting skills, and expertise with ICC2/Innovus and PrimeTime. This is a hybrid position based in Milpitas, CA, offering a competitive compensation package.

Qualifications

• BSEE or higher with 8+ years in ASIC physical design; MSEE preferred.
• Experience in SoC development with 28nm/16nm to 2nm nodes and tapeouts.
• Hands-on use of ICC2/Innovus for implementation and static timing.
• Scripting skills in Perl/Tcl/Python required; strong debugging abilities.

Responsibilities

• Pre-layout STA to assess feasibility and feedback to teams.
• Chip/block floorplanning and pin assignment.
• Review clock specs for completeness and feasibility.
• Perform placement, timing optimization, clock tree, and routing.
• Execute sign-off tasks: RC extraction, STA, IR drop, PV.
• Present to customers and participate in meetings.

Skills

Communication

Teamwork

Problem solving

Customer interaction

Education

BSEE

MSEE preferred

Tools

ICC2/Innovus

Primetime

PrimePower/Redhawk

Verilog HDL

Job description

Description

Socionext Inc. (SNI) is an innovative enterprise that designs, develops, and delivers System-on-Chip products to customers worldwide. The company is focused on AR/VR, imaging, networking, storage and other dynamic technologies that drive today’s leading-edge applications. Socionext combines world-class expertise, experience, and an extensive IP portfolio to provide exceptional solutions and ensure a better quality of experience for customers. Founded in 2015, Socionext Inc. is headquartered in Yokohama, and has offices in Japan, Asia, United States and Europe to lead its product development and sales activities. Socionext America Inc. (SNA), a wholly owned subsidiary of SNI.

We are seeking a Physical Design Engineer. This is a hands-on technical position and will have opportunities to work on a variety of challenging designs. Critical to this position is the ability to articulate technical discussions with ASIC Customers and design teams and work closely with customer, frontend and integration teams to ensure successful tape outs.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Pre-layout STA to ascertain feasibility, timing constraint validation and feedback to customers and design teams
• Chip/Block Level Floorplanning and pin assignment
• Review top-level/block-level clock specifications for completeness and feasibility
• Handle all the Physical design tasks (Placement, Timing Optimization, Clock Tree Synthesis, Routing)
• Perform sign-off tasks (RC Extraction, Static Timing Analysis, IR drop analysis and Physical Verification)
• Presentations and Customer Interaction in customer meetings

Necessary Qualifications:

• BSEE, with 8+ years of experience or equivalent experience. MSEE preferred.
• Experience in ASIC Physical Design; Experience in an SoC product development organization with tape outs from 28nm/16nm to 2nm design nodes.
• Hands-on Experience with implementation EDA tools like ICC2/Innovus.
• Scripting (Perl/Tcl/Python) is required.
• Good understanding of ASIC frontend design.
• Experience in both Flat and Hierarchical layouts.
• Strong problem-solving skills and ability to analyze and resolve physical design issues related to library, timing constraints or CAD tools is required.
• Experience with power analysis and IR-drop tools (primepower/Redhawk) and Static Timing Analysis (Primetime).
• Experience with Physical Verification and fix PV errors in layout.
• Expert handling of Verilog HDL based Netlists, Physical design libraries.
• Team player with good interpersonal and communication skills; ability to explain processes and answer customer questions during meetings.
• Base Pay + Bonus(es)

Socionext America is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of sex (including all gender identities and expressions), race, or ethnicity.

Benefits:

• 401(k)
• 401(k) matching
• Employee assistance program
• Flexible spending account
• Health insurance
• Health savings account
• Life insurance
• Paid time off
• Referral program
• Vision insurance

Work Location: Hybrid remote in Milpitas, CA 95035