Senior Lead Post-Silicon Validation Engineer - SMMU

Job Title

Senior Lead Post-Silicon Validation Engineer - SMMU

Role Summary

Hands-on validation engineer responsible for IP- and subsystem-level verification and validation of System MMU (SMMU) blocks in complex SoCs. The role covers pre-silicon and post-silicon phases and requires close collaboration with architecture, RTL, firmware/driver and physical-design teams to ensure correct functionality, performance and robustness.

Experience Level

Senior - typically 3–5 years of relevant ASIC design, verification, validation or integration experience; candidates with more experience are welcome. Shorter experience may be considered with advanced degrees.

Responsibilities

The engineer will own SMMU validation and related system-level interactions across silicon bring-up and lab validation.

• Own SMMU validation at block and subsystem levels: test planning, stimulus, checkers/scoreboarding, coverage and closure.
• Design and develop reusable verification components (page-table generators, translation-fault injectors, traffic generators).
• Validate interactions with ARM cores, MMU/TLB, NoC/interconnect, coherency protocols and clock/reset domains (including CDC and low-power scenarios).
• Exercise translation features: stage-1/stage-2, ASIDs/VMIDs, context banks/stream IDs, MSI/IOMMU operations and fault handling.
• Debug complex HW/SW issues using JTAG and on-chip trace/trace infrastructure, bring-up scripts and logic analyzers; drive root-cause analysis with design teams.
• Create performance and stress tests to measure bandwidth/latency and validate backpressure, throttling and QoS behavior under NoC congestion.
• Support emulation/FPGA prototyping and post-silicon activities: port tests, bare-metal validation, board bring-up and lab automation.
• Track and report quality metrics (functional/code coverage, assertions, defect density/escape rates) and author sign-off criteria.
• Collaborate cross-functionally and mentor junior engineers to improve methodology, tools and checkers.

Requirements

Must-have technical skills and practical experience for day-one contribution. Preferred items are listed separately.

• Strong ARM architecture knowledge (memory model, privilege levels, exception model, caches, TLBs, MMU/virtual memory flows).
• Deep understanding of SMMU/IOMMU fundamentals: stream IDs, context banks, translation stages, page-table formats, fault handling and device DMA interactions.
• Experience with NoC/interconnect protocols and coherency (e.g., AXI/ACE/CHI), ordering rules and QoS interaction with SMMU.
• Solid understanding of clocks and resets and their effect on SMMU and NoC behavior; experience validating low-power and clock-gating scenarios.
• Familiarity with JTAG and on-chip debug basics; experience using traces, waveform viewers and logs for root-cause analysis.
• Scripting for automation and analysis (Python, Tcl, Perl, Shell).
• Proven debugging skills for HW/SW integration issues and ability to design edge-case tests from first principles.

Nice-to-have / preferred:

• Post-silicon validation, lab bring-up and firmware/driver integration experience.
• Experience with emulation/FPGA prototyping (Veloce, Palladium, Protium, HAPS) and board-level validation.
• Familiarity with Linux IOMMU framework, device trees/ACPI and driver-level validation.
• Knowledge of PCIe (ATS/PRI/PASID), CXL, virtualization stacks or security/safety aspects of memory isolation and fault injection.
• Experience with CI/CD for verification, coverage dashboards and large-scale regression triage.

Education Requirements

Bachelor's (B.E./B.Tech) or Master's (M.E./M.Tech) or PhD in Engineering, Computer Science, Electronics, Electrical Engineering or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience. The posting indicates degree + experience combinations as follows: Bachelor's + ~3+ years, Master's + ~2+ years, PhD + ~1+ year.

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.