Staff Engineer - Physical Design

Scope  

Ambiq is looking for a Staff Engineer - Physical Design to help bring our advanced SoC designs from netlist to GDS. In this role, you will lead top-level physical implementation and help deliver high-quality silicon that meets challenging performance, power, and area targets. You will work closely with cross-functional teams, including Middle End, DFT, Front End, ARC, and Package teams, to build efficient, manufacturable physical layouts for multi-power-domain designs. This role is well suited for someone who is technically strong, collaborative, self-driven, and excited to work on advanced process technologies and low-power semiconductor products.

Responsibilities

• Lead the physical design flow from netlist to GDS, including floorplanning, placement, clock tree synthesis, routing, physical verification, and DFM.
• Drive timing closure, IR drop and EM closure, signal integrity analysis, and layout violation resolution.
• Use industry-standard EDA tools from Cadence and Synopsys for place and route, static timing analysis, physical verification, and signoff analysis.
• Apply strong methodology expertise in placement and routing for FinFET and multi-patterning process technologies.
• Work closely with designers, synthesis engineers, DFT engineers, and other stakeholders to resolve implementation challenges.
• Improve physical design methodologies, scripts, and flows to increase efficiency, consistency, and quality.
• Stay current with advancements in physical design, EDA tools, and new process nodes.

Qualifications

• Master or Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field.
• At least 8 years of experience in integrated circuit physical design.
• Strong experience with physical design flows, including floorplanning, placement, routing, clock tree synthesis, and physical verification.
• Hands-on experience with Cadence Innovus and/or Synopsys Fusion Compiler.
• Solid understanding of digital circuit design principles.
• Experience with timing closure, power integrity, signal integrity, IR drop, and EM analysis.
• Proficiency with industry-standard EDA tools from Cadence and Synopsys.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills.
• Ability to work effectively with cross-functional engineering teams.
• Experience with TCL scripting; Python experience is a plus.
• Fluency in English and Mandarin is required, as this role involves close collaboration with Chinese-speaking engineering counterparts.