Electrical Engineer, ASIC Program Lead-CA
Synchron · San Diego, CA · 1 wk ago
On-siteEngineering$160k–$260k/yrFull-time
About the role
The Principal Electrical Engineer, ASIC Program Lead will own the custom ASIC program from concept and specification through verification, silicon bring-up, qualification, and production release. This role requires a strong background in mixed-signal systems, ASIC/SoC development, and high-reliability electronic product development.
Responsibilities
- Lead the custom ASIC program from concept and specification through verification, silicon bring-up, qualification, and production release.
- Own ASIC requirements and architecture tradeoffs across neural signal acquisition, analog front-end performance, digital data path design, power, testability, reliability, manufacturability, and system integration.
- Drive verification strategy for the ASIC and broader electrical system, with emphasis on low-noise AFE performance, high-channel-count data handling, timing, interfaces, and signal integrity.
- Serve as the primary technical interface with ASIC vendors, semiconductor design partners, foundries, packaging partners, and production test resources.
- Lead pre-silicon and post-silicon debugging, characterization, root-cause analysis, and corrective actions across analog, digital, firmware, packaging, PCB, and system boundaries.
- Define and support production test strategy, including DFT/DFM considerations, test coverage, qualification data review, yield improvement, and manufacturing issue resolution.
- Partner with firmware, systems, signal processing, mechanical, clinical, quality, regulatory, and manufacturing teams to ensure the ASIC meets product-level performance and reliability requirements.
- Contribute to design reviews, technical risk assessments, FMEA, verification documentation, regulatory documentation, and design history files.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field. Advanced degree preferred.
- 10+ years of experience in electrical engineering, mixed-signal systems, ASIC/SoC development, or high-reliability electronic product development.
- Demonstrated ownership of at least one custom ASIC program from concept and specification generation through verification, silicon bring-up, qualification, and production release.
- Strong analog or mixed-signal background, especially with low-noise analog front ends, sensor interfaces, neural signal acquisition, biopotential measurement, precision instrumentation, ADC interfaces, and microvolt-level signals.
- Strong digital background, including data path architecture, multiplexing, serialization, timing closure concepts, clock domain crossing, low-power digital design, data integrity, and robust high-channel-count data handling.
- Experience reviewing or driving ASIC verification plans, including analog, digital, mixed-signal, and system-level verification.
- Experience working with external ASIC vendors, design partners, foundries, packaging teams, or semiconductor test/manufacturing partners.
- Strong understanding of ASIC development flow, including architecture, specification, RTL/design review, verification, synthesis/timing concepts, DFT, physical implementation review, tapeout, silicon bring-up, characterization, and production test.
- Ability to work across analog, digital, firmware, packaging, PCB, and system boundaries to preserve signal fidelity throughout the acquisition and processing chain.
- Strong lab and debugging skills using oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, spectrum analyzers, signal generators, precision measurement equipment, and custom test fixtures.
- Experience developing and executing verification plans, test reports, requirements traceability, failure analysis, and corrective actions.
- Familiarity with IEC 60601, ISO 13485, design controls, design history files, risk management, and regulated product development.
- Strong documentation skills and ability to translate complex system needs into clear technical requirements and design specifications.
- Excellent communication skills with the ability to lead technical discussions across internal teams, external vendors, and senior leadership.
Qualifications
- Experience with implantable, wearable, or high-reliability medical devices.
- Experience with neural recording, bioinstrumentation, electrophysiology, or other low-amplitude physiological signal acquisition systems.
- Experience with ultra-low-power ASICs, low-leakage circuits, sub-microwatt/channel front ends, power domains, and power/performance optimization.
- Experience with mixed-signal designs where isolation, crosstalk, substrate noise, ground bounce, coupling, and packaging parasitics are critical.
- Familiarity with Verilog/VHDL/SystemVerilog, UVM concepts, EDA tools, and ASIC verification methodologies.
- Experience with Python, MATLAB, C/C++, Tcl, or other scripting/programming tools for test automation, modeling, data analysis, or lab characterization.
- Experience supporting production test, yield improvement, reliability testing, accelerated life testing, supplier qualification, or contract manufacturing.
- Experience mentoring senior engineers or leading cross-functional technical teams without requiring formal people-management authority.