Roles / Board Bring-up Engineer

Board Bring-up Engineer

PSI-004v1

Silicon Bring-up, Validation & ReliabilityTestIC2–IC6Individual contributor

Also known as: Validation Board Engineer; EVB Bring-up Engineer; Hardware Bring-up Engineer

See this role on the FPGA lifecycle or on the Firmware and software lifecycle or on the Startup lifecycle or on the System lifecycle or on the Platform lifecycle or on the SoC lifecycle

Summary

Designs, brings up and debugs the validation, evaluation and reference boards that host the silicon so that every electrical and functional measurement the programme needs can actually be made.

A day in the life

Work in progressNo day-in-the-life description has been written for this role yet. If you do this work, we would welcome yours. Suggest a source or a correction

Responsibilities

Lines tagged General are the Hub's general description of this kind of role, used where the role register has no entry yet. They are kept under review and will be refined.

Project

Work done for a product or program.

Define validation board requirements covering power rail granularity, sense points, probe access, socket versus soldered options and debug connectors.
Review schematics and PCB stackups with the hardware design team for signal integrity, power integrity and measurement access.
Execute board bring-up including power rail verification, short checks, sequencing validation and clock distribution confirmation.
Debug board-level faults with TDR, VNA and scope measurements and distinguish board defects from silicon defects.
Perform and document board rework such as rail strapping, series resistor changes, capacitor population and probe-point wiring.
Validate power delivery network impedance and decoupling against the silicon supplier's PDN target impedance requirements.
Manage board revisions, ECOs and the build matrix across multiple lab sites and customer reference designs.
Support high-speed interface bring-up by providing controlled-impedance breakouts, SMA launches and compliance test points.
Hand over boards with a documented errata list, rework instructions and known limitations.

Function

Work that keeps the discipline running: methods, tools, suppliers and people.

Maintain test standards, test hardware and program libraries.General
Work with equipment and probe card suppliers on capacity and capability.General
Improve test methods and data tools for future products.General

Major tasks

Project

Produce and hand over the role's key deliverables
- Validation board requirements specification and review sign-off
- Board bring-up report with rail measurements and known issues
- Board errata and rework instruction sheets
- PDN impedance and signal integrity measurement results
- Board revision and build matrix across lab sites
Develop the test solutionGeneral
- Define the test plan and coverage targets
- Write and debug the test program
- Design or specify the test hardware
Release to productionGeneral
- Correlate results across testers and sites
- Optimise test time
- Release the program under change control

Function

Maintain test infrastructureGeneral
- Keep program libraries and standards current
- Plan tester and hardware capacity
Improve methodsGeneral
- Review escapes and adjust coverage
- Develop data analysis tools

Works with

Hardware design
package engineering
signal and power integrity teams
validation engineers
contract manufacturers
component suppliers

Typical backgrounds

BS/MS in Electrical Engineering; 3–12 years in hardware design, board bring-up or signal integrity; strong practical lab background.

Demand signal

0 open listings right now
0 Talent Wafer employer inquiries

Counts live listings tagged to this role, and employer interest in candidates from Talent Wafer runs for this role (all runs to date). Hub activity only, not the wider market.

Comp tier (within semis)

2 / 5

Remote feasibility

Low

Semis core vs. portable

Semis-primary, transfers

Geographic hotspots

Santa Clara, Austin, Taipei, Shenzhen, Bangalore, Munich, Penang, Tel Aviv, Eindhoven

Certifications / standards training

IPC-A-610 / IPC J-STD-001; ANSI/ESD S20.20 handling

Transfers to (industries)

Consumer electronics OEMs, networking and telecom equipment, automotive Tier-1 hardware, medical instrumentation, defence electronics

Risk if vacant

Validation stalls on boards that cannot power up or cannot be probed, and silicon bugs get misattributed to board issues, wasting weeks of debug effort.

Board Bring-up Engineer

Summary

A day in the life

Responsibilities

Project

Function

Major tasks

Project

Function

Works with

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