Senior CPU Physical Design Engineer

About the role

The Role and Impact: As a Senior CPU Physical Design Engineer, you will play a critical role in delivering Intel's next-generation high-performance CPUs from concept through manufacturing. You will drive physical implementation and optimization of complex CPU designs, ensuring industry-leading performance, power efficiency, area optimization, and manufacturability. In this role, you will collaborate with architecture, logic design, circuit design, CAD, and validation teams to enable innovative computing solutions that power client, data center, and AI-driven products. Your contributions will directly influence Intel's future technology roadmap and help shape the next generation of computing.

Responsibilities

• Perform physical design implementation for custom CPU designs, transforming RTL into a design database ready for manufacturing.
• Execute all aspects of the physical design flow, including floor planning, synthesis, place and route, clock tree synthesis, static timing analysis, power/clock distribution, and noise analysis.
• Conduct verification and signoff processes, including formal equivalence verification, reliability verification, layout verification, and structural design checking.
• Collaborate closely with cross-functional teams, including logic, circuit, architecture, and design automation, to optimize CPU microarchitectures for power, area, and frequency improvements.
• Build and refine physical design methodologies, enhancing flow automation and efficiency.
• Work with industry EDA vendors to improve design tools and enable high-speed, low-power synthesizable CPUs.
• Analyze design results and propose recommendations for optimizing current and future CPU microarchitectures.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical/Computer Engineering, or a related field with 6+ years of relevant experience.
• Or a Master's degree in the same field with 4+ years of relevant experience, OR a PhD in the same field with 2+ years of relevant experience.

Behavioral Traits

• Strong technical problem-solving and analytical skills.
• Ownership and accountability for delivering quality results.
• Effective collaboration across diverse, global engineering teams.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Adaptability in a dynamic and fast-paced development environment.
• A passion for continuous learning and technical innovation.