Physical Design Engineer Job Description

Role: Physical Design / Backend VLSI Engineer

Key Responsibilities
- Perform complete RTL-to-GDSII physical design flow for ASIC/SoC designs.
- Work on floorplanning, power planning, placement, clock tree synthesis (CTS), routing, and physical verification.
- Analyze and optimize timing, power, area (PPA).
- Perform STA and resolve setup/hold timing violations.
- Handle congestion, IR drop, electromigration (EM), and signal integrity issues.
- Perform ECO implementation and timing/area optimization.
- Run and debug DRC, LVS, antenna, ERC, and other physical verification checks.
- Work with synthesis, STA, DFT, RTL, and custom-design teams to resolve implementation issues.
- Generate and review GDSII/OASIS, DEF, LEF, SPEF, and other implementation data.
- Support block-level and/or full-chip physical design and tapeout activities.

Required Skills
- Robust understanding of CMOS/VLSI physical design fundamentals.
- Good knowledge of:
- Floorplanning
- Placement
- CTS
- Routing
- Timing closure
- Power optimization
- Physical verification




- Hands-on experience with tools such as:
- Synopsys ICC2 / Fusion Compiler
- Cadence Innovus
- Synopsys PrimeTime
- StarRC
- Calibre
- Knowledge of SDC constraints, timing paths, clock definitions, false paths, multicycle paths, etc.
- Understanding of UPF/low-power design is an advantage.
- Scripting knowledge in Tcl, Python, or Perl is highly desirable.
- Familiarity with Linux/Unix environments.

Typical Qualifications
- B.E./B.Tech/M.E./M.Tech in Electrical, Electronics, VLSI, or related fields.
- Experience can range from fresher/entry-level to senior physical design engineer, depending on the position.

Important Interview Topics

For a Physical Design interview, focus especially on:

1. Floorplan and power planning
2. Placement and congestion
3. CTS and clock skew
4. Setup and hold timing
5. Timing optimization
6. Routing and SI/crosstalk
7. IR drop and EM
8. DRC/LVS
9. MMMC/PVT corne

📌 Physical Design Engineer (Bengaluru)
🏢 Aritrak Technologies
📍 Bengaluru