Staff Engineer, Validation

Description
Ambiq has been on a singular mission since 2010 to put intelligence everywhere by creating the most energy-efficient semiconductor solutions for IoT endpoint devices. Using the revolutionary Subthreshold Power Optimized Technology (SPOT) Platform, Ambiq's record-breaking ultra-low power solutions, including MCU and SoCs, have helped global device makers deliver more than 150 million products with advanced features, enhanced performance, and extended battery life.

With a leading market share in wearables at the speed of shipping one million units per month, Ambiq is now expanding its impact on novel endpoint products such as hearables, smart home automation, industrial IoT preventive monitoring, and more.

Our innovative and fast-moving teams of research, development, production, marketing, sales and operations are spread across several continents, including the US (Austin and San Jose), Taiwan (Hsinchu), China (Shenzhen and Shanghai), Japan (Tokyo), and Singapore. We value continued technology innovation, fanatical attention to customer needs, collaborative decision making, and, above all, enthusiasm for energy efficiency. We embrace candidates who also share these same values. The successful candidate must be self-motivated, creative, and comfortable learning and driving exciting new technologies. We encourage and nurture an environment for growth and opportunities to work on complex, interesting, and challenging projects that will create a lasting impact. Come join us on our quest for 100 billion devices. The endpoint intelligence revolution starts here.

Scope And Responsibilities
The Staff Validation Engineer designs and develops system software and hardware used to validate and characterize Ambiq Micro MCU products and associated system components. This includes development and/or integration of software tools for custom validation hardware, power profiling, device specific characterization, MCU control and monitoring, and data collection and analysis.

Product validation and device characterization ensures the product meets design targets and will operate as intended in the end customer system under all specified operating conditions. The validation team collaborates with the software, systems, applications, and design teams to develop validation plans, provide inputs for product testability and characterization, and drives post silicon validation testing. It also works closely with the product test team on product level characterization requiring comprehensive data collection necessary to verify and correlate correct device functionality and to set product specification limits.

Specific Responsibilities

• Develop microcontroller (MCU) silicon validation algorithms and functional tests using TCL (Tool Command Language), Shell and/or Python scripts and embedded C/C++.
• Work with the software, design, and verification teams to develop validation and MCU characterization plans and define implementation details of automated test scripts.
• Work with internal engineering teams to analyze and debug complex system level issues and develop hardware and software solutions.
• Create digital, analog, and power validation software regression test suites.
• Define and develop mixed signal analog and power analysis tools for validation test data logging, analysis, and presentation.
• Develop custom automated software functions and applications to assist with debug of MCU hardware issues.
• Software development of current monitoring, capturing, and profiling tools and applications
• Lead validation sub-projects and mentor other validation team members.
• Improving and optimizing validation test systems, procedures, and test methods.
• Define algorithms and implementation details for characterizing MCU analog and digital electrical characteristics, performance, and power consumption.

Requirements
Experience Required

• BS/MS in EE with 5+ years of experience developing software to automate MCU silicon validation and/or related embedded processor systems.
• 5+ years of experience developing software algorithms and writing TCL, Shell, and/or Python test scripts, and embedded MCU code in C/C++.
• Experience architecting and developing software for automation systems that include a host PC, lab electrical equipment, and custom MCU silicon validation board hardware.
• Experience working with common embedded MCU software IDEs (Keil, IAR, Eclipse, ARM) and build environments for C/C++ and TCL software development and debug.
• Experience working in a lab environment with digital and analog electrical test equipment such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, audio analyzers, spectrum analyzers, and pico-ammeter measurement equipment.
• Experience developing and using data logging, analysis, and report generation tools.
• Excellent critical thinking skills and ability to solve complex system level issues related to board level hardware and software integration, analog and digital hardware interactions, and low power management.
• Experience with test and debug of MCU digital, analog, and power related issues.
• Experience working with ARM based microcontrollers that have both complex analog and digital integration. This includes power management, ADCs, timers, I2C, SPI, I2S, PDM, UART, and high-speed peripheral interfaces.
• Experience validating and characterizing SOC analog blocks such as ADCs, DACs, voltage and current references, RC and crystal oscillators, charge pumps, buck/boost converters, PLLs, and audio amplifiers.
• Knowledge of ultra-low current measurement techniques is desirable.