Digital IC Design Engineer

Architect and implement ultra-low-power digital ICs for sensor devices in the Life Science, Health, Robotics, and IoT domain. 

Imec the Netherlands has established a world-leading track record in the design of novel sensors for ultra-low-power IoT devices. Our teams continue to develop innovations in environmental monitoring, accurate localization, implantable therapeutics, medical/wearable devices, and many other fields. At our HQ in Leuven, Belgium we are world-renowned for pioneering new process technologies in collaboration with industrial foundries and with the broader semiconductor ecosystem. Imec’s research tracks enable unique opportunities for end-to-end innovations. 

The IC-design team in imec the Netherlands (Eindhoven and Nijmegen) develops innovative solutions for Life Science & Health applications and for massive and heterogeneous sensor networks to connect billions of devices within the internet of things (IoT). We have built various ultra-low-power (ULP) radio ICs like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth-LE, and UWB 6-10 GHz radio tuned towards precise ranging, localization, and radar. 

What you will do

We need you as a Digital IC Design Engineer to be part of our multidisciplinary team to: 

• Define concepts and architectures for next generation ICs for IoT, edge AI accelerator ICs and Health applications ICs. 
• Take responsibility for the design of high-performance, ultra-low-power digital signal processing modules. This includes: 

1. Coming up with digital architectures. 
2. RTL development for ASIC and FPGA. 
3. Making trade-offs for minimal power consumption at best performance and low cost, while considering scalability, maintainability and re-usability. 
4. Collaborate with digital back-end team for synthesis and physical implementation.  
5. Verification. 

• Validate and characterize your own designs experimentally in a lab environment. 
• Collaborate in an inter-disciplinary team. Understand (internal or external) customer needs, challenges and requirements and translate that into solutions that you can incorporate into your designs. 
• Contribute to high-quality reports and documentation. 

What we do for you

By joining imec the Netherlands (Eindhoven and Nijmegen), you will be part of a team of disruptive innovators and thinkers. Together, with our Researchers and Engineers you will work on systems that combine local data with info from the cloud and other sensor networks to create a holistic picture of the world and enable an Intuitive IoT. We drive the Internet of Things by developing innovative solutions for massive, heterogeneous sensor networks to connect billions of devices together. Imec is a reference in the design of ultra-low-power electronics, low-power algorithms to increase intelligence and data security, and in all aspects of data science.    

Imec the Netherlands, as an employer of choice, offers you an attractive compensation and benefits package including a 100% employer-paid pension plan and flexible working hours. Furthermore, imec-NL offers a wide range of training possibilities. For international candidates, we provide support in the relocation process.   

Who you are

• MSc or PhD in electronics engineering with 5+ years of relevant experience. 
• Strong experience with digital circuit design in (System) Verilog is required. 
• Following application experience is a preferred: 

1. Affiliation on hardware efficient AI accelerator, event driven computing, compute modalities like multi-core/-processor systems, in memory computing, large data computing. 
2. Hardware modelling.
3. Architecting and designing CPU and peripheral (sub-)systems. 

• Experience with digital verification is preferred: verification plan definition and tracking, verification methodologies, code/functional coverage, constrained random verification. 
• Understanding of the remaining steps of the digital ASIC-design flow is required: logic synthesis, timing analysis, power simulation, logic equivalence, DFT and/or P&R.  
• Experience with scripting languages like TCL, Matlab and Python is required. 
• Experience with revisioning systems, like git is required. 
• Knowledge of FPGA-development is a plus.  
• Knowledge of low-power designs is a plus.  
• Experience with Cadence IC design tools is a plus. 
• Experience with C and systemC is a plus. 
• Structural way of working and ability to develop and manage activity planning is highly preferred. 
• Previous experience working closely with (internal or external) stakeholders is a plus. 
• Able to take initiative and responsibility for team’s success. Thinking pro-actively, working independently and having a creative problem-solving attitude are attributes that define yourself. 
• Have broad interest across disciplines and like to embrace new challenges. 
• Excellent communication skills in English (written and spoken).  

Interested

Are you interested in this position, and do you want to learn more about it? Then you can connect to Maartje van Hout, Talent Acquisition Specialist. You can reach Maartje at maartje.vanhout.ext@imec.nl. If you wish to apply, then please submit your full resume and include a motivational letter.