Wireless PHY Systems Engineer - Pre-Silicon Emulation

Job Title

Wireless PHY Systems Engineer - Pre-Silicon Emulation

Role Summary

Own the pre-silicon emulation environment for wireless SoCs, centered on the Palladium platform, to de-risk designs before tape-out. Work at the intersection of digital design, firmware, and validation to bring up emulation builds and provide reusable infrastructure for the verification team.

Collaborate with RF, PHY, MAC, firmware, RTL, and validation engineers to enable early system-level verification and lab bring-up of Bluetooth and UWB silicon.

Experience Level

Senior - the posting specifies a Bachelor's degree with 10 years of relevant experience (senior-level role, ~10+ years).

Responsibilities

Primary responsibilities focus on emulation build bring-up, infrastructure, and pre-silicon validation.

• Perform initial validation and smoke testing for each Palladium emulation build to confirm functionality and readiness.
• Design, build, and own framework and infrastructure: register maps, initialization/boot sequences, clock/reset, and system-level configuration to bring emulated SoCs to operational state.
• Abstract platform bring-up into reusable tooling to reduce platform-level complexity for verification teams.
• Sustain and extend emulation infrastructure across multiple silicon generations.
• Support pre-silicon emulation test development, debug, and performance characterization.
• Bring up, test, characterize, and optimize Bluetooth and UWB silicon in the lab under real-world conditions.

Requirements

Must-have technical skills and experience required for success in this role. Degree requirements are summarized separately below.

• Solid foundation in Digital Signal Processing (DSP) and wireless communications; working knowledge of PHY and MAC layer concepts.
• Hands-on software programming for system modeling, simulation, and test; proficiency in MATLAB and C/C++.
• Familiarity with analog/RF impairments (phase noise, IQ imbalance, nonlinearity) and their impact on system behavior.
• Experience with wireless standards such as Bluetooth and Ultra-Wideband (UWB) or similar protocols.
• Experience collecting, processing, and visualizing large simulation and test datasets (measurement accuracy, latency, throughput).
• Strong written and oral communication skills and ability to work across cross-functional teams.

Nice-to-have:

• Experience with pre-silicon emulation platforms (e.g., Palladium) or FPGA prototyping, including bring-up and performance characterization.
• Hands-on wireless chip/modem development and systems-level understanding of RF–PHY–MAC–firmware dependencies.
• RTL experience (Verilog/VHDL), register map and programming-model definition, fixed-point design, RTL vector generation, or HLS.
• Python proficiency for test automation and data analysis; experience with simulation automation, regression frameworks, or CI/CD.
• Lab experience with FPGA/silicon bring-up, PHY/RF/MAC testing, and RF lab equipment.

Education Requirements

The posting specifies a Bachelor's degree required with 10 years of relevant experience, and a Master's degree preferred with 10 years of relevant experience. The posting does not specify particular fields of study.

About the Company

Company: Apple

Headquarters: Cupertino, California, United States

Apple is a multinational technology company that designs, manufactures, and sells consumer electronics, software, and online services. Known for its innovative products such as the iPhone, Mac computers, and iPad, Apple emphasizes a strong commitment to high-quality design and user experience.