Senior Lead Post-Silicon validation Engineer - SMMU
Qualcomm · Bangalore, India · 18d ago
Company:
Qualcomm India Private LimitedJob Area:
Engineering Group, Engineering Group > ASICS EngineeringGeneral Summary:
We’re looking for a hands-on validation engineer to own IP- and subsystem-level verification & validation of System MMU (SMMU) blocks within complex SoCs.
You will work across ARM-based architectures, MMU/SMMU translation flows, and the surrounding SoC infrastructure—clocks, resets, NoC/fabrics, coherency, and debug (JTAG)—to ensure functional correctness, performance, and robustness from pre-silicon through post-silicon phases.
Minimum Qualifications:
• Bachelor's degree in Science, Engineering, or related field and 3+ years of ASIC design, verification, validation, integration, or related work experience.OR
Master's degree in Science, Engineering, or related field and 2+ years of ASIC design, verification, validation, integration, or related work experience.
OR
PhD in Science, Engineering, or related field and 1+ year of ASIC design, verification, validation, integration, or related work experience.
What You’ll Do (Key Responsibilities)
Own SMMU validation at block/IP and subsystem levels: coverage-driven test planning, stimulus development, checking/score boarding, and closure.
Develop test build reusable verification components for SMMU, including page table generators, translation fault injectors, and traffic generators.
Validate system interactions: SMMU with ARM cores, MMU/TLB, NoC/Interconnect, coherency (ACE/CHI or equivalent), and clock/reset domains (including CDC and low-power/clock-gating scenarios).
Exercise page table formats and features: stage-1/stage-2 translations, ASIDs/VMIDs, context banks/stream IDs, MSI/IOMMU operations, address translation faults, and SVA/ATS (if applicable).
Debug complex issues using JTAG and on-chip debug/trace infrastructure (ETM/STM/SWO), bring-up scripts, and logic analyzers; drive root cause with design/architecture teams.
Performance & stress validation: create stress scenarios (burst/atomic/ordering/ QoS), measure bandwidth/latency, and validate backpressure & throttling behavior through NoC.
Contribute to emulation/FPGA and post-silicon: port tests, build bare-metal validation, develop board bring-up sequences and lab automation.
Own quality metrics: functional coverage, code coverage, assertions, defect density/escape rates; author clear test/coverage reports and sign-off criteria.
Collaborate cross-functionally with architecture, RTL design, firmware/driver, physical design, and validation teams to refine specs and close issues quickly.
Continuously improve methodology, tools, and checkers; mentor junior engineers in best practices.
Minimum Qualifications (Must-Haves)
B.E/B.Tech/M.Tech in ECE/EE/CS or equivalent with 3–5 years of relevant experience.
Strong ARM architecture knowledge (A-profile preferred): memory model, privilege levels, exception model, caches, TLBs, MMU concepts, and virtual memory flows.
Deep understanding of SMMU/IOMMU fundamentals: stream IDs, context banks, translation stages, page table formats, fault handling, and device DMA interactions.
Familiar with NoC/interconnect protocols and coherency (e.g., AXI/ACE/CHI), ordering rules, QoS, and interop with SMMU.
Solid grasp of clocks/resets and their impact on SMMU and NoC behavior; experience validating low-power states and clock gating effects.
JTAG basics to intermediate: scan chains, boundary scan, run-control, breakpoints, basic scripting with OpenOCD/DS-5/Arm Development Studio or similar.
Proficient in debugging complex HW/SW issues, using waveforms (e.g., Verdi/DVE), traces, and logs to isolate root cause.
Scripting in Python/Perl/TCL/Shell for test automation, log parsing, and lab workflows.
Critical thinking & learning agility: ability to infer failure modes from first principles, design edge-case tests, and quickly onboard new IP/flows.
Preferred Qualifications (Good-to-Have)
Prior tapeouts with SMMU or IOMMU IP (Arm SMMU v2/v3 or equivalent vendor IP).
Post-silicon validation experience: lab bring-up, firmware integration, board-level debug.
Experience with emulation/FPGA prototyping (Veloce, Palladium, Protium, HAPS).
Familiarity with Linux IOMMU framework, device trees/ACPI, and driver-level validation (DMA mappings, iommu_ops).
Knowledge of PCIe (including ATS/PRI/PASID), CXL, or virtualization stacks (KVM/Hypervisors) and their interaction with SMMU.
Exposure to safety/security: memory isolation, SMMU faults as security boundaries, RAS features, error injection and detection.
Performance modeling/analysis; profiling tools; building synthetic traffic to characterize SMMU/NoC behavior.
CI/CD for verification (Jenkins/GitLab CI), coverage dashboards, and regression triage at scale.
Tools & Environment
Languages/Methodology: ARM assembly, C for bare-metal tests, Python/TCL/Perl for scripting.
Emu/FPGA: Veloce/RUMI
Versioning/CI: Perforce, Jira.
OS/Drivers: bare-metal frameworks.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Test plan completeness and functional/code coverage closure against SMMU spec and use-cases.
Defect discovery rate and escape rate (pre- vs. post-silicon).
Time-to-root-cause for complex issues; quality of triage documentation.
Regression stability and automation coverage.
Performance validation completeness vs. targets (latency, bandwidth, QoS).
Example Work Items You’ll Own
Create tests for stage-1 and stage-2 translations, ASID/VMID rollover, TLB shootdowns, and context switch stress.
Validate device DMA through SMMU under NoC congestion and clock gating scenarios; confirm ordering and coherency guarantees.
Run JTAG-based bring-up sequences to verify SMMU registers, enable translations, and capture trace for fault analysis.
Automate validation: configure IOMMU groups, map/unmap devices, inject faults, and parse kernel logs for health signals.
Education
B.E/B.Tech or M.E/M.Tech in EE/ECE/CS (or equivalent).
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