Principal System SoC Architect

Custom Silicon System SoC Architect

MIPS – A Global Foundries company is seeking a Custom Silicon System SoC Architect is responsible for defining and driving system-level architecture for next-generation custom silicon solutions, including complex ASICs, SoCs, and integrated system solutions. This role requires translating customer requirements into clear system-level requirements and architectural specifications while collaborating across design, verification, hardware, firmware, software, package, and product teams to deliver high-performance, innovative, and reliable custom silicon products.

Your Job:

• Define and own system-level architecture and technical specifications for custom silicon products from customer requirements through concept, implementation, and tape-out.
• Analyze customer requirements and translate them into actionable system-level requirements, architecture features, performance targets, interface definitions, and validation criteria.
• Drive system-level interface definition and package requirements, including signal, power, thermal, mechanical, pinout, and integration considerations.
• Lead requirement gathering, trade-off analysis, system partitioning, and high-level design, optimizing for performance, power, area, scalability, cost, manufacturability, and package constraints.
• Guide the design and integration of major IP blocks, processing subsystems, memory and I/O, high-speed interfaces, custom accelerators, and system-level interconnects.
• Collaborate with stakeholders across systems, product management, customers, software, firmware, package, and hardware teams to align architectural vision and feature sets with product and market needs.
• Oversee architectural execution to ensure design implementation aligns with system requirements, specifications, and architectural intent.
• Investigate, evaluate, and integrate third-party IP and develop strategies for architecture validation, bring-up, and post-silicon debug.
• Present technical concepts, requirements trade-offs, architecture decisions, and progress to internal teams, management, customers, and external partners.

Other Responsibilities:

• Ensure security, safety, reliability, manufacturability, package, and system-level design compliance in architecture, adhering to relevant standards and customer requirements.

Required Qualifications:

• Deep experience architecting custom silicon, ASIC, SoC, or system-level silicon solutions from customer requirements through architecture definition and execution.
• Demonstrated ability to analyze customer requirements and drive system-level requirements, architecture specifications, and design trade-offs.
• Expertise in hardware system partitioning, IP integration, interconnect protocols, memory hierarchies, and clock/power domain management.
• Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering or related field.
• Strong knowledge of top-down architecture flows, performance modeling, EDA tools, verification strategies, and system validation planning.
• Familiarity with multi-discipline integration, including analog, RF, package, board, software, firmware, and hardware interfaces.
• Thorough understanding of modern interface standards and system-level interfaces, such as AXI, PCIe, DDR/LPDDR, MIPI, USB, Ethernet, and related high-speed connectivity standards.
• Experience defining package-related requirements, including pinout, power delivery, thermal, mechanical, signal integrity, and integration constraints.
• Excellent problem-solving, debugging, and system-level thinking skills.
• Strong communication, technical writing, and project leadership skills.

Preferred Qualifications:

• 15+ years of experience in custom silicon, ASIC, SoC, or system architecture development with a track record of leading architecture definition and execution.
• Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering or related field.
• Demonstrated project leadership in customer-facing, multi-site, or cross-disciplinary environments.
• Experience in domains such as Physical AI, automotive, networking, storage, security, advanced compute, or other complex system-level silicon applications.
• Involvement in strategic planning, IP/vendor evaluations, package architecture trade-offs, and cross-functional technical reviews.
• History of patents, publications, standards participation, or industry engagement is a plus.

An offer with Global Foundries is conditioned upon the successful completion of pre-employment conditions, as applicable, and subject to applicable laws and regulations.

Global Foundries is fully committed to equal opportunity in the workplace and believes that cultural diversity within the company enhances its business potential. Global Foundries goal of excellence in business necessitates the attraction and retention of highly qualified people. Artificial barriers and stereotypic biases detract from this objective and may be illegally discriminatory.

All policies and processes which pertain to employees including recruitment, selection, training,…