Silicon Validation Lead / Principal Engineer

Job Title

Silicon Validation Lead / Principal Engineer

Role Summary

Lead silicon validation for SerDes and high-speed interfaces within the Enterprise SerDes R&D team. Own sim-to-silicon correlation, hardware bring-up, characterization, and cross-functional validation to ensure IP meets architectural and performance targets.

Collaborate with architects, firmware, system teams and customers to identify root causes, implement fixes, and improve SerDes algorithms and overall system performance.

Experience Level

Senior — Principal/Lead level. Requires approximately 18+ years of relevant industry experience in silicon validation and high-speed interface engineering.

Responsibilities

Key responsibilities include:

• Lead silicon validation of IP functionality and performance, ensuring alignment with architectural intent.
• Plan and execute hardware bring-up, firmware integration, and early product characterization.
• Drive root-cause analysis, define workarounds, and coordinate fixes for silicon issues discovered during characterization.
• Manage parallel validation and characterization efforts, including regression and repeatability testing.
• Validate sim-to-silicon performance for algorithms and impairments (for example, AFE curves) and provide feedback to system teams.
• Develop and tune SerDes algorithms and configurations to address performance gaps.
• Support customer bring-up and debug; incorporate lessons from customer evaluation boards into development.
• Communicate findings to Platform Architects and Product Owners to guide platform improvements and accelerate time-to-market.

Requirements

Must-have technical skills and experience:

• 18+ years of hands-on experience in silicon validation, high-speed interfaces, and system-level performance analysis.
• Expertise in SerDes design and validation, including protocols such as PCIe and Ethernet.
• Strong knowledge of signal integrity, equalization, coding, and clock-data recovery (CDR) architectures.
• Hands-on lab validation and debug experience with instrumentation and debug tools; experience correlating simulation to silicon.
• Experience with firmware integration and regression testing methodologies.
• Proven ability to lead cross-functional teams and communicate technical findings to architects and product owners.

Nice-to-have:

• Experience incorporating customer EVB feedback into product improvements.
• Background in developing or tuning SerDes algorithms or system-level performance optimization.

Education Requirements

BSc or MSc in Electrical Engineering or Computer Engineering.

About the Company

Company: Synopsys

Headquarters: Mountain View, California, USA

Synopsys is a leading company in electronic design automation (EDA) and semiconductor IP solutions. It provides tools and services for designing and verifying complex semiconductor devices and systems. The company plays a pivotal role in the semiconductor industry, helping engineers innovate and deliver higher-quality products faster. Synopsys is committed to advancing technology standards and offers a range of software and hardware solutions to its clients globally.