CPU Staff/Senior Staff Engineer – ARM GIC & CPU Post-Silicon Validation

Company:
Qualcomm India Private Limited

Job Area:
Engineering Group, Engineering Group > Hardware Engineering

General Summary:

As a leading technology innovator, Qualcomm pushes the boundaries of what's possible to enable next-generation experiences and drives digital transformation to help create a smarter, connected future for all. As a Qualcomm Hardware Engineer, you will plan, design, optimize, verify, and test electronic systems, bring-up yield, circuits, mechanical systems, Digital/Analog/RF/optical systems, equipment and packaging, test systems, FPGA, and/or DSP systems that launch cutting-edge, world class products. Qualcomm Hardware Engineers collaborate with cross-functional teams to develop solutions and meet performance requirements.

Minimum Qualifications:
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Engineering, or related field and 3+ years of Hardware Engineering or related work experience.
OR
Master's degree in Computer Science, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Engineering, or related field and 2+ years of Hardware Engineering or related work experience.
OR
PhD in Computer Science, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Engineering, or related field and 1+ year of Hardware Engineering or related work experience.

Role Overview
We are looking for an experienced CPU/SoC Validation Engineer with strong knowledge of ARM Generic Interrupt Controller (GIC) architecture and hands-on experience in post-silicon validation, system-level debugging. The engineer will own validation of interrupt-controller functionality across CPU, firmware, power-management, and OS interactions.

Key Responsibilities
• Develop and execute post-silicon validation plans for ARM GICv3/GICv4 and CPU interrupt subsystems.
• Validate GIC components including: Distributor (GICD)Redistributor (GICR)CPU interface and system registersInterrupt Translation Service (ITS)SGI, PPI, SPI and LPI interrupt flows
• Validate interrupt routing, prioritization, masking, preemption, affinity, acknowledgement and EOI behavior.
• Develop stress scenarios covering: Concurrent interrupt generationHigh interrupt ratesMulti-core interrupt routingSGI broadcast and targeted SGIsInterrupt migration and CPU hotplugInterrupt handling during CPU idle and low-power transitions
• Validate GIC behavior across CPU power collapse, suspend/resume, reset and DVFS transitions.
• Debug complex issues involving lost interrupts, unexpected routing, interrupt latency, stuck interrupts and incorrect GIC state.
• Analyze key GIC registers such as GICD, GICR, ICC system registers, ICH virtualization registers and ITS state.
• Validate interactions between the GIC and OS/kernel, firmware, hypervisor and power-management software.
• Work closely with CPU architecture, firmware, kernel, power-management, design and verification teams to root-cause silicon issues.
• Use hardware/software debugging techniques including register dumps, trace, kernel logs, crash dumps and waveform/trace correlation.
• Develop automation and stress workloads for interrupt validation and regression testing.
• Track validation coverage, defects, risks and closure status through engineering tracking systems.

Required Technical Skills
• Strong understanding of ARMv8/ARMv9 architecture.
• Strong understanding of ARM GICv3/GICv4 architecture.
• Good knowledge of: SGI / PPI / SPI / LPIInterrupt affinity and routingPriority masking and preemptionGroup 0 / Group 1 interruptsSecure and Non-secure interrupt handlingGIC Distributor and RedistributorCPU interface registersITS and MSI-based interruptsVirtual interrupts / vGIC concepts
• Understanding of CPU power states, clock/power collapse, reset sequences and low-power entry/exit.
• Programming/scripting experience with C/C++, Python and shell scripting.
• Experience with JTAG/debuggers and SoC debug methodologies is desirable.

Preferred Experience
• 7 to 16 years of experience in CPU/SoC post-silicon validation or silicon bring-up experience.
• Validation of ARM-based multicore SoCs.
• Knowledge of virtualization, hypervisors and virtual interrupt handling.
• Experience debugging interactions among GIC, CPU low-power states, DVFS and firmware.
• Ability to convert architectural requirements into validation scenarios, stress tests and measurable coverage.

Applicants: Qualcomm is an equal opportunity employer. If you are an individual with a disability and need an accommodation during the application/hiring process, rest assured that Qualcomm is committed to providing an accessible process. You may e-mail disability-accomodations@qualcomm.com or call Qualcomm's toll-free number found here. Upon request, Qualcomm will provide reasonable accommodations to support individuals with disabilities to be able participate in the hiring process. Qualcomm is also committed to making our workplace accessible for individuals with disabilities. (Keep in mind that this email address is used to provide reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities. We will not respond here to requests for updates on applications or resume inquiries).

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