14 DAY TRIAL // Apple is believed to be planning the expansion of its CPU design team(s) formed after the acquisition of two fabless chip design companies and the introduction of its A4 application processor, according to a recent job opening posted by the Cupertino giant.
The listing for CPU MicroArchitect reveals that Apple needs not one, but multiple “experienced qualified engineers to work/lead the microarchitecture design of a CPU.”
These people would be designing microarchitecture according to performance and functionality requirements, and would have the following detailed tasks to accomplish as well, Apple said:
· Design microarchitecture and coding the RTL of certain functional meet the functionality requirements, performance goals, and physical constraints such as power, area, and timing. · Deliver microarchitecture specifications · Work with performance modeling engineers to develop design options and select the most suitable one for design · Work with implementation engineers to come up with a design to meet power,timing, and area constraints · Work with verification engineers in developing test plans, tests, and environment for the responsible areas · Drive design to closure with fixes for bugs, timing, and power
Requirements include 5 years (minimum) of industry experience and a Bachelor, Masters, or Ph.D. in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or Computer Science.
In 2008, Apple had reportedly acquired PA Semi.
At the time, Apple was making its proposition, the chip designer had been building very fast and efficient PowerPC processors, AppleInsider reports.
With the help of PA Semi, Apple proceeded to design its own custom mobile processors for future iOS devices, based on the ARM Architecture.
Just recently, an interesting batch of job listings was spotted over at Apple’s website, indicating that the Mac maker is also building a team of engineers with a focus on speech, and speech recognition technologies that will be leveraged in its mobile operating system.
Specifically, Apple wants a Senior Speech Research Scientist, one iOS Speech Application Engineer, and two Speech Recognition Engineers.
The seats appear to be vacant still, at the time of writing.