Staff Design Verification Engineer – Coherent Interconnect (CHI)

SiFive, Inc.; Boston (MA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 220,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Healthcare

Equity

PTO

Job summary

SiFive is seeking a Staff Design Verification Engineer in Boston to drive verification of a next-generation cache-coherent interconnect with CHI-based architecture. You will define verification strategy, build robust environments, and collaborate across architecture, design and software teams to close gaps early.

The role requires 7+ years in ASIC/SoC verification, strong SystemVerilog skills, and deep knowledge of cache-coherent systems.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field.
• 7+ years of experience in ASIC or SoC design verification.
• Strong hands-on SystemVerilog-based verification experience.
• Strong understanding of cache-coherent systems, memory subsystems, and on-chip interconnects.
• Direct experience verifying coherent protocols, with strong preference for CHI.

Responsibilities

• Drive verification of CHI transactions across request, response, snoop, and data paths, including corner cases involving concurrency, hazards, deadlock avoidance, and ordering.
• Develop and maintain robust verification environments, protocol checkers, scoreboards, stimulus, and coverage models for coherent traffic, ordering rules, retries, backpressure, flow control, and error handling.
• Verify integration behavior across caches, home nodes, request nodes, snoop filters, bridges, and protocol-adaptation paths.
• Define high-value directed and constrained-random scenarios that expose corner cases in coherency, credits, buffering, arbitration, and system-level interactions.
• Partner with architecture, design, formal, and software teams to clarify requirements, close ambiguities early, and accelerate debug and signoff.
• Analyze failures efficiently, isolate root cause, and drive durable fixes across RTL, assertions, testbench infrastructure, and test content.
• Improve methodology, infrastructure, and debug productivity for the broader coherent interconnect verification effort.
• Contribute to review quality across specifications, verification plans, coverage closure, and debug strategy.
• Mentor other engineers through technical leadership, design reviews, and verification best practices

Skills

SystemVerilog verification

CHI protocol

Cache-coherence

Debugging skills

Testbench development

Mentoring engineers

Education

BS in EE/CE/CS

MS in EE/CE/CS

Tools

Python scripting

UVM

Job description

About SiFive As the pioneers who introduced RISC-V to the world, SiFive is transforming the future of compute by bringing the limitless potential of RISC-V to the highest performance and most data-intensive applications in the world. SiFive's unrivaled compute platforms are continuing to enable leading technology companies around the world to innovate, optimize and deliver the most advanced solutions of tomorrow across every market segment of chip design, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, automotive, data center, mobile, and consumer. With SiFive, the future of RISC-V has no limits. At SiFive, we are always excited to connect with talented individuals, who are just as passionate about driving innovation and changing the world as we are. Our constant innovation and ongoing success is down to our amazing teams of incredibly talented people, who collaborate and support each other to come up with truly groundbreaking ideas and solutions. Solutions that will have a huge impact on people's lives; making the world a better place, one processor at a time. Are you ready? To learn more about SiFive's phenomenal success and to see why we have won the GSA's prestigious Most Respected Private Company Award (for the fourth time!), check out our website and Glassdoor pages.

Job Description

In this role, you will own complex verification problems spanning coherent data movement, protocol correctness, ordering, snoop and home-node interactions, credit- and flow-control behavior, and subsystem integration across multiple interface boundaries. This is a horizontal role with broad impact across the coherent interconnect space, requiring strong technical judgment, deep debug ability, and the ability to influence verification strategy beyond an individually assigned block. This is a Staff Engineer individual-contributor role. SiFive is looking for a Staff Design Verification Engineer to drive verification of a next generation cache-coherent interconnect subsystem with a strong focus on CHI-based architecture and protocol behavior. In this role, you will define verification strategy, identify architectural and verification gaps early, solve difficult protocol and integration problems, and raise the overall quality bar for the broader interconnect verification effort.

Responsibilities

• Drive verification of CHI transactions across request, response, snoop, and data paths, including corner cases involving concurrency, hazards, deadlock avoidance, and ordering
• Develop and maintain robust verification environments, protocol checkers, scoreboards, stimulus, and coverage models for coherent traffic, ordering rules, retries, backpressure, flow control, and error handling
• Verify integration behavior across caches, home nodes, request nodes, snoop filters, bridges, and protocol-adaptation paths
• Define high-value directed and constrained-random scenarios that expose corner cases in coherency, credits, buffering, arbitration, and system-level interactions
• Partner closely with architecture, design, formal, and software teams to clarify requirements, close ambiguities early, and accelerate debug and signoff
• Analyze failures efficiently, isolate root cause, and drive durable fixes across RTL, assertions, testbench infrastructure, and test content
• Improve methodology, infrastructure, and debug productivity for the broader coherent interconnect verification effort
• Contribute to review quality across specifications, verification plans, coverage closure, and debug strategy
• Mentor other engineers through technical leadership, design reviews, and verification best practices

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field
• 7+ years of experience in ASIC or SoC design verification
• Strong hands-on experience with SystemVerilog-based verification
• Strong understanding of cache-coherent systems, memory subsystems, and on-chip interconnects
• Direct experience verifying coherent protocols, with strong preference for CHI
• Strong understanding of protocol behavior including ordering, snooping, flow control, buffering, arbitration, and error handling
• Experience building reusable checkers, scoreboards, assertions, coverage models, and debug infrastructure
• Strong debugging skills and ability to root-cause issues across specification, RTL, and verification environment layers
• Ability to work effectively across architecture, design, and verification teams in a fast-moving environment

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with ARM CHI or similar high-performance coherent interconnect protocols
• Experience verifying large subsystem integration involving coherent caches, bridges, or protocol-conversion paths
• Experience with memory consistency, cache coherency, and weak-ordering verification challenges
• Experience with formal verification, performance-oriented verification, or emulation-assisted debug
• Familiarity with Python or other scripting languages used for DV infrastructure and automation
• Experience mentoring engineers and driving team-wide improvements in verification quality

What Success Looks Like

• Verification plans are complete, concrete, and aligned to the real architectural and protocol risks
• Critical CHI and coherent-interconnect bugs are found early, reproduced efficiently, and closed with durable fixes
• Coverage and test quality improve meaningfully under your ownership
• The coherent interconnect verification effort becomes more scalable, predictable, and reusable because of your contributions
• Design and architecture teams rely on you as a strong technical partner for difficult protocol, coherency, and integration problems

Benefits

• In addition to base pay, this role may be eligible for variable/incentive compensation and/or equity.
• In addition, this role is eligible for a comprehensive, competitive benefits package which may include healthcare and retirement plans, paid time off, and more!

Additional Information

This position requires a successful background and reference checks and satisfactory proof of your right to work in the United States of America. Any offer of employment for this position is also contingent on the Company verifying that you are authorized for access to export-controlled technology under applicable export control laws or, if you are not already authorized, our ability to successfully obtain any necessary export license(s) or other approvals. SiFive is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. As an E-Verify employer, we use this system to confirm the employment eligibility of all new hires in accordance with federal law. All applicants will be required to complete a Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, upon hire. We do not use E-Verify to pre-screen job candidates and will comply with all E-Verify regulations.

You will be part of a high performance Out-of-Order Core team that focuses on verification of components such as Frontend, Mid-Core, Load-Store Unit, Integer and Floating Execution Unit, as well as Vector Unit that implement the latest RVV. BS/MS Degree in EE, CE or CS 5-8 years relevant experience with IP/Component functional verification, preferably in Core/CPU verification. Deep understand of computer architecture is desired. Experienced developer using Object Oriented Programing principles.

Championed by leaders who chose to make a real difference, SiFive led the RISC-V revolution-creating a tremendous wave with the strength to remove economic hurdles and create opportunities for all. Now that we’ve made history, you have the opportunity to write the future. If you love to be challenged, you can join the best of the best and get rewarded for doing something that truly matters.