SoC Validation Engineer

About the role

NXP is looking for a Digital SoC Validation Engineer to join its Silicon Validation team in Austin, Texas. The engineer handles pre-silicon emulation and silicon validation, debug and characterization of complex System-on-Chip products used in automotive, industrial, networking and IoT applications. The role involves developing test plans, writing and porting test code, and running and debugging tests on emulation and silicon, working closely with design, verification, firmware, software and product engineering teams.

Key responsibilities

• Develop validation plans for digital SoC subsystems and full-chip functionality from design specifications.
• Develop and/or port validation test content at IP, sub-system and SoC levels.
• Bring up, run and debug tests on pre-silicon emulation and silicon, and characterize devices under process, voltage and temperature variations.
• Debug silicon issues with lab equipment such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, protocol analyzers and JTAG debuggers.
• Analyze failures and work with design and verification teams on root cause and corrective actions.
• Validate high-speed interfaces and protocols such as PCIe, USB, Ethernet, CAN, SPI, I2C, UART and MIPI.
• Design validation environments, test frameworks and automation scripts, and build Python, Perl, Shell or C/C++ automation tools.
• Review architecture, design specs and verification results for coverage, and support qualification, reliability testing and customer issue resolution.
• Write validation reports and share findings with stakeholders.

Required profile

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science or a related field.
• 10+ years of experience in SoC validation, emulation and silicon validation.
• Strong understanding of digital design, computer architecture and SoC architectures.
• Experience with embedded processors such as ARM-based systems, Linux, and scripting languages.
• Familiarity with FPGA prototyping and board-level validation.

Required skills

• C programming, ARM assembly, and scripting (Python, Perl, Shell)
• Hardware debug techniques and lab equipment
• Industry-standard interfaces and communication protocols
• Strong analytical, problem-solving and debugging skills