Physical Design Engineer

We are seeking an experienced Physical Design Engineer with 6–15 years of industry experience to join our VLSI/ASIC engineering team. The ideal candidate will have strong hands-on expertise across the physical implementation flow, with particular emphasis on Cadence Innovus and Static Timing Analysis (STA). You will be responsible for taking designs from netlist through physical implementation, optimization, timing closure, and sign-off while working closely with RTL, synthesis, STA, and verification teams.

Key Responsibilities

• Perform end-to-end physical design activities including floorplanning, power planning, placement, clock tree synthesis (CTS), routing, optimization, and physical verification.


• Develop and implement physical design strategies for complex digital blocks and full-chip designs.


• Use Cadence Innovus extensively for placement, CTS, routing, timing optimization, and design closure.


• Analyze timing reports and perform STA to identify setup and hold violations and drive timing closure.


• Work on congestion analysis, placement optimization, buffering, cell sizing, and other techniques to improve PPA and timing.


• Perform clock-tree analysis and optimization to manage skew, latency, transition, and clock-related constraints.


• Collaborate with synthesis and RTL teams to resolve timing, area, power, and physical-design challenges.


• Debug implementation issues and develop effective solutions to achieve design goals within schedule and PPA constraints.


• Review and validate design constraints, timing exceptions, clock definitions, and implementation quality.


• Support physical sign-off activities and ensure designs meet required performance, power, and reliability targets.


• Participate in methodology improvements, automation, flow development, and physical design optimization initiatives.

Must-Have Skills

• 6–15 years of hands-on experience in Physical Design / ASIC implementation.


• Strong expertise in Cadence Innovus and experience using it across the physical implementation flow.


• Strong understanding and practical experience with Static Timing Analysis (STA) and timing closure.


• Solid knowledge of the complete physical design flow from netlist to GDSII.


• Strong understanding of floorplanning, power planning, placement, CTS, routing, optimization, and physical verification.


• Experience debugging setup/hold violations and resolving timing and congestion issues.


• Good understanding of multi-mode, multi-corner (MMMC) implementation and timing constraints.


• Familiarity with physical design challenges related to advanced semiconductor process nodes.


• Strong scripting/automation skills using Tcl, Python, or Shell are desirable for flow automation and analysis.

Good-to-Have Skills

• Experience with EMIR (Electromigration and IR Drop) analysis and power integrity considerations.


• Exposure to IR-drop analysis, electromigration checks, and power-grid optimization.


• Experience working with physical sign-off tools and methodologies.


• Knowledge of industry-standard physical verification and sign-off flows.


• Experience with low-power design methodologies and power optimization.


• Exposure to advanced-node designs and complex SoC implementation.

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electronics Engineering, Electrical Engineering, VLSI, Microelectronics, or a related discipline.