Power Converter Design – Analog IC

About the job

The Custom product business of Texas Instruments is looking for talented Switching Converter design leads. If you are looking to join an ingenious, vigorous & ambitious team that consistently delivers groundbreaking technologies into the custom mobile electronics world, here is an opportunity for you

In this role you will be choosing switching converter architectures for Buck, Boost, Buck-Boost, Inverting Buck-boost and SIMO converters, innovating to meet the best efficiency, transient-performance and IDDQ at high operational frequencies, to enable our customers to get the best battery life for hand-held electronic devices. Suitable candidates with proven experience in leading switching converter designs, track -record in pushing performance boundaries by way of innovation, an in-depth silicon debug experience can apply.

The Custom product line is delivering industry leading custom IC system solutions including display and touch power products, charger power products, camera PMICs, power switches/muxes, LED drivers, High speed communication interfaces. Our solutions integrate signal chain and power components, that enable TI customers to differentiate their next-gen products in the personal electronics domain. This is a great opportunity to be part of the best custom semiconductor team in the world.

Basic Qualifications:

• The ideal candidate will be have proven expertise in the field of analog and mixed signal design with experience in switching DCDC regulators design e.g. multi-phase buck, boost ,buck-boost, inverting buck-boost converters

• The ideal candidate will bring passion and excitement to participate in Tier1 custom IC development. The candidate should have demonstrated experience in power converter design innovation and best practices across their organization, and should excel at teaching junior team members.

• The candidate will work independently with little supervision to design complex power converter analog circuits with multiple, cross-functional engineers; operate with complete block ownership to drive all aspects of the block design tasks to successful completion in the committed schedule; manage design workloads and delegate tasks for project success; deliver accurate, aggressive, but attainable design schedules to the product team and customers; manage the design phase to efficiently utilize scarce project resources; anticipate and highlight any/all risks in the design schedule during the planning phase of the project and implement plans to mitigate these risks; drive high level, dynamic interaction with customers/sales in technical meetings.

• Must have solid understanding of power stage design and layout including gate drivers, control loops, fault systems and power Fets. Competency in the analysis, transistor level design and system implementation of analog functions for power converters including amplifiers, voltage/current references, comparators, LDO’s, charge pumps, DACs etc. Must be capable of hand (i.e. pen and paper) analysis as well as have fluent knowledge and familiarity with simulation tools (i.e. SPICE, Spectre, Maestro, Midas, Raaga, VPS).

In this role, responsibilities may include:

• Lead an Analog IC design with product ownership and responsibility from definition to release to manufacturing

• Direct, guide and participate in activities of a research or technical design function responsible for designing, developing, modifying and evaluating electronic parts, components, integrated circuits for a variety of applications

• Make assignments for team members, providing design guidance as needed, developing schedules and monitoring progress throughout the project

• Evaluate intermediate and final results of projects during the design phase and during silicon evaluation, to ensure accomplishment of technical objectives

• Work with and provide guidance to physical designers and monitors the progress of IC layout

• Collaborate with Design Verification teams during the pre-PG phase of a project to ensure completion of all technical tasks before PG

• Work with systems engineers, application engineers and marketing to prepare product briefs, datasheets, application notes and assisting in the definition of the product to meet customer needs as well as contributing to roadmap formulation and new concept creation

• Collaborate with validation, product engineering and test engineering teams to enable successful transfer to production

• Interface and lead discussions with the customer and/or TI field sales/field applications teams to understand customer designs, problems and support as required

• Actively participate in hiring, developing and evaluating personnel to ensure efficient operation of the organization and growth of the individuals into leader

Minimum requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering or related field of study

• 8+ years of analog circuit design and switching converter design

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience in switching DCDC regulators design e.g. multi-phase buck, boost and buck-boost converters.

• Solid understanding of different control architectures (DCS/AOT/COT, peak/valley/average current mode)

• Knowledge of device physics and process technologies tradeoffs that are applicable to Power IC design

• Expertise in tools e.g. Spectre, Simplis, Matlab and AMS

• System level understanding and analysis; and the ability to translate requirements to an IC spec level

• IC system partitioning and architectural tradeoff analysis

• Active involvement with a customers. Candidate would be expected to interact and collaborate with a sense of ownership with customers and all product development team members including design, layout, systems, verification, validation, test and program management

• Block level topology selection, hand analysis, and IC transistor level implementation

• Schematic generation and simulation on modern CAD tools (Cadence tool set)

• Worst case identification, top level simulation, Monte Carlo analysis, and simulation data analysis

• Physical layout management, signal grounding and routing tradeoffs, die area optimization

• Post layout parasitic extraction and simulation, verification of all IC level performance metrics

• Top level verification, block level modeling, top level simulation

• Must budget time, manage schedule and complete complex IC design tasks on time

• Must have depth of experience and meticulous approach to assure high quality results

• Must account for limitations of system level specifications, testability, debug, characterization, production and yield targets in the IC design phase.

• Must work well with colleagues and customers to foster a highly creative, interesting, productive and fun working environment.

Organizational Skills: Ability to work well with internal cross functional teams. Must successfully and appropriately interface with external customers. Project management, time management, multi-tasking, problem solving and communication (written and oral) are important skills in this role. Must be able to manage assigned tasks with minimal supervision.

Team and People Skills: Candidate must be team oriented and must be able to work with TI-internal and external groups (systems, test, sales, marketing, customers, etc.) to resolve issues and generate business success. The ability to work well with others and to perform in a team environment is essential.

Projects and Deliverables: The main deliverable is the timely release of meticulously analyzed and simulated IC designs or sub-sections of designs for custom designs with tight schedules. These designs should lead to cost-effective, high quality, bug-free products that fully meet our customer’s end-system requirements