Analog/mixed-signal IC Design Engineer - Acacia (Hybrid)
Cisco SystemsJob Title
Analog/mixed-signal IC Design Engineer - Acacia (Hybrid)
Role Summary
Member of the Acacia Mixed Signal Design team responsible for architecting, designing, laying out, measuring and productizing ultra-deep sub-micron CMOS analog/mixed-signal (AMS) circuits for high-speed optical transceivers.
The role is hybrid (three days per week in the San Jose, CA office) and involves collaboration with digital/DSP, system, package and module teams to deliver production-ready ASICs for optical communications at 100G–1.6T+ speeds.
Experience Level
Senior level. The posting specifies experience expectations equivalent to roughly 7–8+ years depending on degree (see Education Requirements).
Responsibilities
Primary responsibilities include architecture, design and delivery of high-speed AMS IC blocks and ensuring integration into system and packaging.
- Architect, design, simulate, layout, and validate high-speed AMS circuits for optical transceivers.
- Lead design efforts for large/complex blocks, track deliverables, and participate in design reviews.
- Mentor and guide junior engineers on design methodology and best practices.
- Collaborate with digital/DSP, system, packaging and hardware teams to meet signal and power integrity targets.
- Develop test plans, perform measurements, and support lab validation and productization activities.
- Ensure designs meet manufacturability, PVT characterization, and reliability requirements.
Requirements
Must-have technical skills and experience (extracting degree requirements moved to Education Requirements).
- Significant hands-on experience designing, simulating, and measuring high-speed ICs; experience must cover at least three of the listed technical areas below.
- Experience with high-speed serial links: serializers/deserializers, data converters.
- Experience with high-performance output drivers, PLLs, clock distribution, opamps/PGAs, and equalization techniques.
- Ability to lead a design block through conception to production and participate effectively in peer reviews.
- Strong problem-solving, detail orientation, and ability to operate independently and in team settings.
Nice-to-have / preferred:
- Experience with electrical transceiver applications (backplane and cable communications).
- Experience with FinFET and GAA technologies and high-frequency layout including floorplanning and passive components.
- Design-for-manufacturability experience: PVT characterization, electromigration, self-heating, IR drop analysis.
- Laboratory validation experience including ESD practices and construction of test setups.
- Familiarity with design tools: Cadence Virtuoso, Spectre/APS/SpectreX, Calibre, EMX, AMS simulation flows, and MATLAB.
Education Requirements
Minimum qualifications in the posting: Bachelor's degree + 8 years related experience; Master's degree + 6 years related experience; PhD + 3 years related experience. Specific fields of study are not listed.
About the Company
Company: Cisco Systems
Headquarters: San Jose, CA, United States
Cisco Systems is a global technology company that designs and sells networking hardware, telecommunications equipment, software, and services. It provides enterprise and service-provider networking, security, collaboration, and optical communications solutions (including Acacia Communications technologies for high-speed optical interconnects).
