Sr. IC Design Engineer

Summary:

Teledyne LeCroy’s products need to be the fastest, cleanest and most flexible to handle the challenges of characterizing the advanced electronics being developed across the world.

Teledyne LeCroy’s custom integrated circuits sit at the heart of our instruments. To make the best instruments, we need chips that perform at the edge of what is theoretically possible. To make these chips we hire the most talented and creative IC designers in the industry. If that is you, keep reading.

The design work

The Senior IC Designer will design custom integrated circuits primarily using Silicon Germanium BiCMOS technologies. These custom circuits will be used in Teledyne LeCroy’s oscilloscopes and probes. We pride ourselves in achieving the highest level of technical performance out of each of our designs. The Senior IC designer will be expected to leverage a strong technical foundation and creative problem-solving skills to find new ways to tackle engaging technical problems.

The designs will encompass all aspects of oscilloscope acquisitions systems from amplification and signal conditioning to sampling, clocking and triggering. Some examples of design characteristics are as follows:

• Precise DC accuracy
• Wideband operation from DC up to mm-wave frequencies
• Optimization of frequency responses, return losses, noise, distortion, jitter and many other signal quality characteristics
• Stability analysis
• Temperature stability
• Balancing power vs performance
• ESD protection
• Design for manufacturability and reliability

The tools

The Senior IC Design Engineer will primarily use Cadence tools (Virtuoso, AMS, SpectreRF, Explorer, Assembler, Quantus, EMX, Physical Verification System) to complete the design tasks. Ansys HFSS may also be used.

Skill and Python scripting are used heavily to improve efficiency and expose new capabilities during the design process.

Responsibilities

The Senior IC Designer will primarily work on chip or cell level detailed design. They will take designs from concept through tape out. Layout support will be available, but the Senior IC Designer is responsible for overseeing the layout such that their design meets all performance targets.

Due to the senior level of the role, the Senior IC Designer will spend time in other areas that support the rest of the design team. These areas could include mentoring junior designers, conducting technical studies and participating in system level design work.

The team

The Senior IC Designer will work together with a team of experienced and talented designers. The environment has been curated over the past 60 years to cater to people who love technology and want to continually build upon their skillset. There are plenty of experienced people to learn from who are happy to share their knowledge. At the same time, the Senior IC Designer will not be working on cookie cutter problems. They will be solving new problems with the support of an experienced team.

Qualifications

• Ten or more years of BiCMOS IC design experience with multiple tape outs, meaningful personal responsibility, and successful results.
• BS, MS or PhD in Electrical Engineering
• Thorough understanding of fundamental circuit design concepts such as passive network analysis, bipolar devices, CMOS devices, time and frequency domain analysis, feedback, stability, transmission lines, matching, noise, distortion, compression, temperature sensitivity and sampling theory
• Thorough understanding of real-world circuit design considerations such as bipolar and CMOS device structure and limitations, thermal sensitivity, parasitics, electromigration, breakdown, ESD susceptibility and reliability
• Understanding of RF design topics such as S-Parameters and matching networks
• Proficiency with the tools we use or comparable tools (Virtuoso, AMS, SpectreRF, Explorer, Assembler, Quantus, EMX, Physical Verification System, Skill, Python, HFSS)
• Experience designing wideband circuits from DC to mm-wave frequencies
• Enthusiasm for sharing knowledge and mentoring junior team-members
• Excellent collaboration and communication skills