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Director of Silicon Physical Design (m/f/d)

This is a senior leadership role within one of the Europe’s highest profile Semiconductor start-up companies. The Director of  Physical Design will drive an international Physical design group as well as influence development within Axelera’s multicore in-memory-compute SoC. The Physical Design Director will devise the Physical design roadmap for next-generation projects, and be hugely influential in the ongoing success of the company .

The Director of Physical Design will be an experienced Physical Design expert with a strong track record of major Physical Design leadership roles within ASIC development, from initial concept to final release. The Director of Physical Design will be a natural leader, able to inspire and influence the team, and have credibility when working with senior technical colleagues at Lead and Director level.  

 This role calls for a hands-on leader with a vision and capable of leading a team in executing that vision. The director will be responsible for an organization of 10-15 engineers internally and managing external resources. 

You will have demonstrable skills in ASIC Physical Design, from RTL to GDS, including hands-on expertise in: 

• Build and manage a physical design group owning partitions and full-chip from synthesis to place and route through all sign-off including timing signoff, physical verification, EMIR signoff, and formal verification. 
• Influence tools, flows, and overall design methodology in design construction, signoff, and optimization. 
• Work closely with architecture/RTL/DV/silicon validation teams to build the right product from project inception to validation. 
• Plan schedule, headcount, and computing resources. And keep all plans in sync with other teams. 

You will have key responsibilities such as: 

• Management of the physical design team, providing performance reviews, pastoral care and execute the yearly appraisal of the team members. 
• Lead the Physical Design team, drive methodology and strategy for the Physical Design of high performance SOC’s. 
• Maintain close collaboration across the company to ensure that the right decisions are being made.  
• Participate in the presentation of projects to the company 
• Managing team members from across the company to achieve the project goals 
• Develop and maintain methodology, flows, and sign-off criteria Physical Design team.  

Essential skills (/ Minimum requirements)  

• 20+ years of experience in Physical Design. 
• Great communication and teamwork to contribute to diverse and inclusive teams. 
• Proven track record of implementing designs through synthesis, Floorplanning, place and route, extraction, timing, and physical verification. 
• Deep understanding of constraints generation, STA, timing optimization, and timing closure. 
• Experience in EDA tools such as Primetime, StarRC, Genus, Innovus, Design Compiler, ICC/ICC2, FC, Calibre. 
• Proficient understanding of CTS and different clock building techniques 
• Experience with multi-clock, multi-power-domain design 
• Experience in IP integration (memories, IO’s, embedded processors, double data rate, networking fabrics, and Analog IP) 
• Knowledge of semiconductor device physics and transistor characteristics 
• Proven track records of leading/architecting flow/tool development 
• Scripting skills in Python, Tcl, or Perl 
• Ability to collaborate and work directly with the tool vendors, and drive them to resolve tools bugs, as well as implement the required improvements 
• Outstanding technical problem solving and debugging ability 
• Highly refined organizational design, matrix management and collaborative skills 
• Ability to make decisions effecting packaging, substrate and PCB design 
• Fluent in English, both in speaking and writing 

Desirable Experience and skills 

• Fluency in Dutch  
• Continuous integration methodology, architecting regression test-suites 
• Setting up processes and checks for receiving releases from IP vendors and providing IP releases to internal teams 
• Project management, milestone definition and planning 
• Willingness to elaborate technical concepts together with your colleagues 
• Able to work autonomously and plan and perform research tasks 
• You have a strong sense of responsibility and want to “Make the impossible possible” 

Who we are 

Axelera AI is a truly European deep-tech Start Up company which is developing a game-changing hardware and software platform for AI at the edge that will make the industry more integrated, efficient and accessible. Our mission is to spread artificial intelligence for a green, fair, trusted and safe world enabling new application of AI in diverse sectors like smart cities, retail and other markets. Our company is a spin-off from a multinational deep-tech group and is backed by a strong syndicate of institutional investors. We have an extraordinary and international team of top talented researchers and developers working in the headquarter in Eindhoven (NL) and in the branch offices in Leuven (BE), Zurich (CH) and Pisa (IT). 

What we offer 

Take the chance to become part of a dynamic, fast-growing, international organization. We offer an attractive compensation package, including a pension plan, extensive employee insurances and the option to get company shares. 

An open culture that not only supports creativity and continual innovation is awaiting you. 

Collaborative ownership and freedom with responsibility is characteristic for the way we act and work as a team. 

Interested? 

Great! We are looking forward to receiving your application! For any further questions or information, please feel free to contact Heike Wilfling, HR Business Partner, careers@axelera.ai. For further information on Axelera AI please also have a look on our website: www.axelera.ai