Staff Emulation & FPGA Prototyping Engineer

The Hardware team at Untether AI is seeking a Staff Emulation & Prototyping engineer to join our pre-silicon validation team. In this role, you will utilize FPGA-based platforms, hardware emulation systems, and prototyping environments to validate pre-silicon designs and enable early software and firmware development. This position is critical to ensuring the functionality, performance, and reliability of our cutting-edge system-on-chip (SoC) designs before they transition to silicon.

***Please note: this position requires occasional travel to our downtown Toronto office***

Responsibilities

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FPGA Prototyping

• Develop and deploy FPGA-based prototypes for functional and performance validation of SoC subsystems.
• Partition, synthesize, and implement complex RTL designs on FPGA platforms, ensuring timing closure and optimal resource utilization.
• Debug FPGA implementations to ensure alignment with design specifications.




Hardware Emulation

• Configure and operate hardware emulation systems (e.g., Synopsys ZeBu, Cadence Palladium/Protium, or Mentor Veloce) for large-scale pre-silicon validation.
• Develop and optimize transactors, bridges, and test environments for emulation platforms.
• Collaborate with design and verification teams to debug and resolve functional issues identified during emulation.




Integration and Early Software Development

• Identify and root-cause hardware, firmware, and software integration issues.
• Collaborate with firmware and software teams to enable early bring-up and pre-tapeout driver development.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field.
• 5+ years of experience in RTL design (ASIC or FPGA).
• 3+ years experience working directly with complex FPGA designs and/or hardware emulation systems.
• Proven ability to develop and maintain high-quality design documents.
• Good verbal and written communication skills.
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team.

Preferred Skills & Experience

• In addition to the above requirements, some experience in one or more of the following:
• Software programming with C, C++ and Python.
• Development in a Linux environment, compiling and working with shared libraries and kernel modules.
• Experience writing low-level firmware code (i.e. interacting with SoC IPs).
• Processor architectures and AMBA bus structures.
• Experience with high speed interfaces (DDR, HBM, PCIe).
• Microcontroller or single-board computer programming experience.

What are some of the perks that you will receive being part of Untether AI?

• Aligned to Untether’s philosophy, our employees enjoy the same perks, regardless of role or level. In part, these include:
• 20 vacation days
• Strong health and extended health benefits
• Unlimited sick days
• Stock options
• Building chips and software that will change the world

Thinking about applying?

• We’re a pretty welcoming bunch of people. If we’ve piqued your interest, you’re passionate about the same things we are but you aren’t sure if you check all the boxes, please apply anyway. We’re a great place to work, an even better place to learn and we focus on both capability and potential!




• Besides being a pretty friendly group, we’re also pretty diverse - ethnically, experientially and in our physical and mental abilities. If you are someone who needs accommodation during the interview process and/or in the workplace, please send a note along with your resume to [email protected] and we’ll be in touch.

A little bit more about Untether AI:

Untether AI has developed a groundbreaking new architecture that brings neural net inference to new levels of performance and efficiency. We’ve already sold our product to smart clients who want to get in at ground zero. We’ve done this while continuing to improve our technology creating ultra-efficient, high performance AI chips that eliminates the data movement bottleneck that costs energy and performance in traditional architectures. We’re a team made up of scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs and have the support of tier one investors. Join us to be part of something big - a chance to create the future of AI.