Hardware Physical Design / VLSI Intern (2027 Internships)

Job Title

Hardware Physical Design / VLSI Intern (2027 Internships)

Role Summary

12-week, full-time internship on NVIDIA's hardware physical design teams working on ASIC/SoC back-end implementation, verification, and tooling. Interns contribute to projects with measurable business impact and work alongside engineers on floorplanning, P&R, timing, power, and physical verification tasks.

Experience Level

Entry-level internship for students currently enrolled in a university program (undergraduate or graduate).

Responsibilities

Interns will be assigned project work and expected to deliver measurable results while collaborating with engineering teams.

• Execute physical design tasks such as floorplanning, place & route, timing closure, and power/clock distribution analysis.
• Run and analyze EDA tools and flows (e.g., ICC2, Innovus, PrimeTime) to support implementation and verification.
• Perform static timing analysis, power integrity/IR drop checks, RC extraction correlation, and back-end verification (DRC/LVS).
• Develop or extend tooling and scripts to automate flows; debug and improve design flow robustness.
• Collaborate with digital design, verification, and CAD teams to meet project milestones.
• Document results, present findings to mentors, and incorporate feedback to iterate on designs.

Requirements

Candidates should have relevant coursework or practical experience and the ability to work full-time for the internship duration.

• Available full-time for the complete 12-week internship period.
• Coursework or hands-on experience in physical design topics: P&R, STA, CTS, power distribution, or physical verification.
• Familiarity with EDA tool suites and flows (examples: Synopsys, Cadence tools) and back-end methodologies.
• Programming or scripting experience (examples: Python, TCL, Perl, C/C++, SKILL, Make) and comfort with Linux.
• Ability to analyze tool output, debug flows, and correlate signoff data with implementation results.
• Good communication skills and ability to work in cross-functional teams.
• Nice-to-have: prior internship or project experience using specific tools such as ICC2, Innovus, PrimeTime, Design Compiler, Virtuoso.

Education Requirements

Must be actively enrolled and pursuing a B.S., M.S., or Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field for the full duration of the internship. Resumes or CVs must clearly indicate anticipated graduation month and year.

Relevant NVIDIA policies and resources: Applicant Privacy Policy, Terms of Service, Student resources (PDF), Intern benefits.

About the Company

Company: NVIDIA

Headquarters: Santa Clara, California, USA

NVIDIA is a global leader in accelerated computing, renowned for its innovative solutions in AI and digital twins that transform diverse industries. The company specializes in networking technologies, providing end-to-end InfiniBand and Ethernet solutions for servers and storage that optimize performance and scalability. NVIDIA serves sectors such as high-performance computing, enterprise data centers, and cloud computing, constantly reinventing its products and services to stay ahead in the market.