RISC-V CPU Design - Staff Engineer
QualcommJob Title
RISC-V CPU Design - Staff Engineer
Role Summary
Senior RTL and microarchitecture engineer working on high-performance, low-power RISC-V CPU cores. You will develop microarchitecture specifications, implement and refine RTL, and collaborate with architects, verification, and physical design teams to meet power, performance, area and timing targets.
Experience Level
Senior / Staff level. Typical experience guidance: approximately 6+ years for candidates with a Bachelor's degree (lower years expected for advanced degrees per Education Requirements).
Responsibilities
Primary responsibilities include designing and delivering CPU microarchitecture and RTL suitable for high-performance, low-power targets.
- Perform performance exploration and trade-off analysis with CPU modeling teams.
- Develop microarchitecture from high-level exploration to detailed specification.
- Own RTL development, assessment and refinement to meet PPA (power, performance, area) and timing goals.
- Support functional and performance verification efforts; collaborate with verification teams on verification strategy and execution.
- Work with cross-functional teams to validate design in physical implementation (timing, area, reliability, testability).
Requirements
Must-have technical skills and experience for this role.
- Proven experience in CPU microarchitecture and RTL development for high-performance processors.
- Hands-on RTL experience (Verilog and/or VHDL) and familiarity with simulators and waveform debugging tools.
- Strong understanding of digital logic design, timing and power implications.
- Experience with performance verification and benchmarking to validate microarchitectural goals.
- Familiarity with low-power microarchitecture techniques and high-performance trade-offs.
- Proficiency with a scripting language such as Python or Perl for automation and analysis.
Nice-to-have:
- Deep knowledge in areas such as instruction fetch/decode, branch prediction, register renaming, out-of-order execution, caches and memory subsystems.
- Experience with CPU performance modeling and prefetching strategies.
Education Requirements
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Engineering or related field with 6+ years of relevant hardware/RTL experience; OR Master's degree in similar fields with 5+ years; OR PhD in similar fields with 4+ years. (Degrees and the associated minimum years are listed in the original posting.)
About the Company
Company: Qualcomm
Headquarters: San Diego, California, United States
Qualcomm is a global leader in semiconductor and telecommunications equipment, specializing in mobile technologies and innovations. Known for its Adreno GPUs, the company provides solutions enabling advancements in mobile gaming, AI, VR/AR, and autonomous driving. Qualcomm's cutting-edge technology and commitment to high-performance, power-efficient designs drive the evolution of mobile graphics and connectivity worldwide.
