Hardware Engineering Intern (EE)

Keysight Technologies, Inc. • Santa Rosa, CA

1d • Onsite

About The Position

Keysight is seeking an Electrical Engineer to help design, integrate, and validate high-performance electronic hardware for advanced instrumentation and measurement systems. The role is based in Santa Rosa, California, within the Digital and Photonics R&D team, which develops high-performance oscilloscopes. It is intended for a recent BS or MS graduate with strong engineering fundamentals and hands-on experience gained through internships, university research, laboratories, or engineering projects. The position offers guidance and mentorship from experienced hardware, signal-integrity, FPGA, software, and measurement specialists.

The intern will contribute to high-speed board-level digital and mixed-signal hardware, including multi-GHz designs, and participate in the hardware-development lifecycle from architecture and component selection through schematic capture, PCB/PCA implementation, bring-up, characterization, validation, troubleshooting, and production transition. The work spans circuits, clock and timing, signal and power integrity, PCB design, interconnect behavior, simulation, laboratory measurement, hardware/software integration, and verification.

The role emphasizes learning through collaborative design reviews, hands-on lab work, troubleshooting, and technical discussions. As skills develop, the intern can take on increasing ownership, connect simulations and design choices with laboratory measurements, and build expertise across digital, analog, mixed-signal, signal-integrity, power-integrity, FPGA, and embedded-system domains.

Requirements

• BS or MS in Electrical Engineering, Electronics Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related discipline.
• Hands-on hardware experience through internships, university research, laboratory work, student teams, personal projects, or professional engineering experience.
• Strong digital-electronics fundamentals and a practical foundation in analog and mixed-signal circuitry.
• Some experience with schematic design, PCB/PCA development, board bring-up, measurement, troubleshooting, or root-cause analysis through academic, project, internship, or professional work.
• Foundational understanding of transmission lines, controlled impedance, termination, reflections, crosstalk, return paths, and PCB parasitics.
• Interest in developing deeper expertise in signal integrity and power integrity for high-performance hardware.
• Familiarity with high-speed digital interfaces through coursework, projects, research, internships, or professional experience.
• Familiarity with clock and timing concepts such as oscillators, PLLs, clock generation and distribution, synchronization, and jitter.
• Enthusiasm for hands-on laboratory work and systematic troubleshooting.
• Ability and willingness to work across hardware, software, and FPGA boundaries when diagnosing complex system behavior.

Nice To Haves

• Academic, project, internship, or professional exposure to multi-GHz signals, fast edge rates, high-speed serial interfaces, or design techniques relevant to approximately 10 GHz operation.
• Exposure to high-speed ADCs/DACs and FPGA-based acquisition or signal-processing hardware.
• Familiarity with SERDES or multi-gigabit serial links.
• Familiarity with S-parameters, VNA measurements, TDR/TDT, eye diagrams, jitter analysis, or channel characterization.
• Exposure to ADS, SystemVue, S-parameter models, or SI/PI simulation tools.
• Understanding of how PCB dielectric properties, insertion loss, copper loss, surface roughness, connectors, vias, and interconnect discontinuities affect high-frequency designs.
• Exposure to EMI/EMC design or troubleshooting.
• Experience with Python, C/C++, MATLAB, or similar languages for hardware characterization, diagnostics, data analysis, or test automation.
• Experience through coursework, research, internships, or projects involving electronic instrumentation, measurement systems, data-acquisition hardware, or other high-performance electronic products.

Responsibilities

• Contribute to the design and development of high-speed board-level digital and mixed-signal hardware, including multi-GHz designs and applications approaching 10 GHz.
• Participate in the hardware-development lifecycle, from architecture and component selection through schematic capture, PCB/PCA implementation, board bring-up, characterization, validation, and troubleshooting.
• Develop and work with circuits including RLC networks, high-speed op-amps, filters, low-noise oscillators, microcontrollers, FPGAs, ADCs/DACs, memory, and power-supply conditioning.
• Design and evaluate clock and timing circuitry, including oscillators, PLLs, clock generators, buffers, synchronization, distribution, and jitter-sensitive circuits.
• Apply high-speed signal-integrity and noise-control principles.
• Develop robust power architectures using DC/DC converters, LDOs, sequencing, decoupling, grounding, and low-noise power distribution.
• Partner with PCB and signal-integrity engineers on materials, stack-up, impedance targets, placement, high-speed routing, via structures, connectors, grounding, power planes, and return paths.
• Evaluate how PCB materials, packages, connectors, launches, vias, and other interconnects affect electrical behavior at multi-GHz frequencies.
• Participate in pre-layout and post-layout design reviews and, where applicable, use SPICE, IBIS/IBIS-AMI, S-parameters, and SI/PI simulation tools and models.
• Perform hands-on board bring-up and troubleshooting with laboratory equipment such as high-bandwidth oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers, VNAs where applicable, TDR/TDT techniques, logic analyzers, DMMs, and power supplies.
• Investigate hardware challenges involving signal integrity, timing, jitter, clocks, power integrity, interfaces, FPGA behavior, embedded firmware, and PCB implementation.
• Collaborate with software and FPGA engineers on device initialization, register configuration, diagnostics, communication interfaces, and hardware/software integration.
• Participate in multifunctional peer design reviews and use measurement results to improve subsequent hardware revisions.
• Support hardware verification, design documentation, design-for-manufacturability, EMI/EMC activities, and transition to production.
• Learn through collaborative design reviews, lab work, troubleshooting, and technical discussions, while taking on increasing ownership as skills grow.

What This Job Offers

• Career Level: Intern