Hardware Engineer

Athari•Lexington, MA

10h•$75 - $110•Hybrid

About The Position

The Digital Hardware Engineer will design, implement, and validate advanced digital systems with an emphasis on FPGA-based development. The engineer will translate functional or algorithmic specifications into optimized HDL architectures, perform simulation and verification, and integrate these designs into prototypes and full hardware systems. This role requires expertise in complex, highspeed digital design and hands-on experience bringing FPGA implementations into working hardware. In addition to digital design, the engineer will develop and test supporting hardware such as power distribution, digital control and other PCBs. Responsibilities include building and refining prototypes, diagnosing and resolving defects, overseeing hardware integration, and maintaining detailed design documentation. The ideal candidate has strong FPGA/HDL skills, experience with hardware design tools, and the ability to evaluate, iterate, and improve both digital and physical system performance.

Requirements

5 years or more of relevant design experience, hands-on radar systems design, system realization, and field testing of HF and microwave radar systems.
Strong knowledge of VHDL/Verilog, Vivado/ISE, ISIM, EDK, System Generator, 3rd Part IP.
Detailed PCB design and bring up using Mentor Graphics and Altium.
Usage of Test Equipment, RF signal generators, Oscilloscopes and Logic Analyzers.
Working in Windows 7/10 and Linux environments, and TCL.
Familiarity with digital receiver design, including direct detect (i.e. RF sampling) receiver architectures.
Proficiency with MATLAB.
Good organizational skills with the ability to complete assignments working independently and in a team environment, and effectively present results.
Effective communication with colleagues, sponsors, and other research sites.
Knowledge of Radar timing and basic signal processing.
Knowledge of RF converters.
Xilinx FPGA development and test in an Embedded environment.
PCB design, schematic capture, component selections and simulation using Altium/Mentor Graphics.
Evaluating design tradeoff against speed and resource utilization.
Strong knowledge and understanding of analog/digital components, ADC and DAC performances.
Experience with various hardware interfaces and communication: PCIe, I2C, LVDS, Serial Data over Fiber Optics with Protocol knowledge.
Software design and development in C/C++.
Experience with Xilinx/AMD FPGAs, MPSoCs, and ACAPs (5 years).
Hardware Design (5 years).
Hardware Design Tools such as SolidWorks, PCB Layout Tools such as Altium Designer (5 years).
C/C++ programming (5 years).
FPGA Development (VHDL/Verilog or SystemVerilog) (5 years).
FPGA development and diagnostic tools (5 years).
MATLAB (5 years).
Advanced Signal Processing, Receiver/Transmitter Design, Radar Architectures (5 years).
Systems Engineering experience.
Testing and Evaluation experience (5 years).

Nice To Haves

Desire and ability to participate in field experiments and data collection efforts, which could involve travel.

Responsibilities

Design, implement, and validate advanced digital systems with an emphasis on FPGA-based development.
Translate functional or algorithmic specifications into optimized HDL architectures.
Perform simulation and verification of HDL designs.
Integrate FPGA designs into prototypes and full hardware systems.
Develop and test supporting hardware such as power distribution, digital control, and other PCBs.
Build and refine prototypes.
Diagnose and resolve defects.
Oversee hardware integration.
Maintain detailed design documentation.
Evaluate, iterate, and improve both digital and physical system performance.
Develop VHDL/Verilog test benches for functional and timing simulation.
Perform detailed PCB design and bring up using Mentor Graphics and Altium.
Utilize Test Equipment, RF signal generators, Oscilloscopes and Logic Analyzers.
Work in Windows 7/10 and Linux environments, and TCL.
Develop DSP algorithms optimized for FPGA implementation.
Perform New Circuit Characterization and Qualification.
Perform New Circuit Debug.
Perform PCB Design and Layout.
Perform FPGA Embedded Systems Development (Xilinx, ARM, Microblaze, PetaLinux).
Perform Testing and Evaluation.