CPU Gate Level Synthesis Engineer

Santa Clara Until 9/22/2026 10+ years exp First posted July 24, 2026 Last posted July 24, 2026
Job description

Imagine what you could do here. At Apple, new ideas have a way of becoming extraordinary products, services, and customer experiences very quickly. Bring passion and dedication to your job and there's no telling what you could accomplish. Dynamic, hard-working people and inspiring, innovative technologies are the norm here. The people who work here have reinvented entire industries with all Apple Hardware products! The same passion for innovation that goes into our products also applies to our practices strengthening our commitment to leave the world better than we found it. Join us to help deliver groundbreaking Apple products! Apple’s Silicon Engineering Group (SEG) is looking for a hardworking engineer for our CPU Gate Level Synthesis role to assess and optimize design quality. In this role, the candidate would be a part of Apple’s industry-leading CPU design team, working in a multi-functional role to ensure that our CPUs meet the highest standards for performance, power and area.

Description

As a CPU Gate Level Synthesis Engineer, you will drive the early-stage development of high-performance, low-power digital designs for cutting-edge high-performance CPUs. This role involves running RTL to gate level synthesis and finding opportunities to optimize timing, power, and area for micro-architectural features. You will collaborate with cross-functional teams to implement synthesis methodologies, constraint development, DFT integration, RTL optimization and power analysis. Responsibilities include but are not limited to:

• Early RTL health assessment to detect potential timing/gate-depth issues and collaborating with the RTL & physical design teams in exploring solutions
• Early stage power estimation and validation for new micro-architectural features
• Enhancing synthesis flows for good correlation to post-route to ensure high fidelity of synthesis-based feedback
• Work closely with DFT teams to ensure seamless integration of scan chain, ATPG, and MBIST into the synthesis flow
• Partner with timing team to enable constraints generation at top levels
• Debug and resolve timing, power, and area issues, ensuring efficient and scalable designs
• Track and analyze PPA trends through project cycle

Minimum Qualifications

Minimum BS and 10+ years of relevant industry experience
Experience in digital logic design, RTL synthesis, and physical design

Preferred Qualifications

The ideal candidate should possess CPU implementation experience
Proficiency in scripting languages (Tcl, Perl, Python) for automation and flow optimization
Strong problem-solving, debugging, and collaboration skills in a fast-paced environment

About this role

Summary

Develop high-performance, low-power CPU designs via RTL to gate-level synthesis.

Job title

CPU Gate Level Synthesis Engineer

Experience level

senior level

Minimum experience

10+ years exp

Industry

technology

Location requirements

Santa Clara, on-site only; no remote work permitted.

Salary

Not specified

Management role

No

Skills & keywords

Required skills

RTL synthesisdigital logic designpower estimationscripts: Tcl, Perl, Python

Preferred skills

CPU implementationflow automationproblem-solvingcollaboration

Specializations

digital logic designRTL synthesispower optimizationphysical design
Locations

Structured locations inferred from the posting.

Santa Clara, CA, USA

On-site City