Hardware Robustness for SMI Register Interfaces in Automotive PHY Chips

Job Title

Hardware Robustness for SMI Register Interfaces in Automotive PHY Chips

Role Summary

This is a 6-month internship based in Eindhoven (hybrid) to research and prototype hardware mechanisms that improve the robustness of SMI/MDIO register interfaces in automotive PHY chips. The goal is to detect or correct bit errors on the MDIO bus or within on-chip register files without requiring software changes.

Work includes RTL design, fault-injection verification, and collaboration with firmware and verification teams to produce prototypes and evaluation results.

Experience Level

Entry-level — internship for final-year bachelor students; suitable for candidates with limited industry experience.

Responsibilities

Primary responsibilities include design, verification, and prototyping of hardware robustness features for SMI register interfaces:

• Analyze SMI/MDIO protocol behavior and failure modes in automotive EMC conditions.
• Design RTL modules (SystemVerilog) for error detection, correction, protocol wrappers, or redundancy.
• Implement register-file or bus-level protections transparent to software.
• Develop verification environments with fault injection and coverage-driven tests.
• Run simulations using EDA tools and evaluate performance, latency, and resource trade-offs.
• Integrate prototypes with existing PHY register architectures and coordinate with firmware and verification engineers.
• Document design decisions, test plans, and experimental results.

Requirements

Must-have technical skills and attributes:

• Basic digital logic design knowledge and familiarity with at least one HDL (Verilog / SystemVerilog / VHDL).
• Ability to read and understand technical English documentation.
• Analytical and structured approach to trade-off problems.

Nice-to-have:

• Prior experience with SystemVerilog testbenches and fault-injection methodologies.
• Familiarity with PHY devices, MDIO/SMI protocol internals, or register-file architectures.
• Experience with common EDA flows, simulation tools, or professional chip-design workflows (code review, version control).

Education Requirements

Final-year BSc in Electrical Engineering, Microelectronics, Embedded Systems, or Computer Engineering.

About the Company

Company: NXP Semiconductors

Headquarters: Nijmegen, Netherlands

NXP Semiconductors N.V. is a global semiconductor company that provides High Performance Mixed Signal and Standard Product solutions. With over 45,000 employees and operations in more than 35 countries, NXP is a leader in secure connectivity solutions for embedded applications, catering to automotive, industrial IoT, mobile, and communication infrastructure markets. The company is committed to innovation and sustainability, advancing a smarter, safer, and more sustainable world through technology.