Lead Architect, Custom Silicon

About GlobalFoundries

GlobalFoundries is a leading full-service semiconductor foundry providing a unique combination of design, development, and fabrication services to some of the world’s most inspired technology companies. With a global manufacturing footprint spanning three continents, GlobalFoundries makes possible the technologies and systems that transform industries and give customers the power to shape their markets. For more information, visit .

Introduction:

The Custom Silicon Lead Architect is responsible for defining and driving the architecture of next-generation custom silicon solutions, including complex ASICs and SoCs. This role requires cross-disciplinary collaboration with design, verification, hardware, firmware, and software teams to deliver high-performance, innovative, and reliable custom silicon products.

Your Job:

• Define and own the architecture and technical specifications for custom silicon products from concept through tape-out.

• Lead requirement gathering, trade-off analysis, partitioning, and high-level design, optimizing for performance, power, area, scalability, and cost.

• Guide the design and integration of major IP blocks, processing subsystems, memory and I/O, high-speed interfaces, and custom accelerators.

• Collaborate with stakeholders (systems, product management, software, and firmware) to align architectural vision and feature sets with market and product needs.

• Oversee architectural execution to ensure design aligns with specifications and architectural intent.

• Investigate, evaluate, and integrate third-party IP and develop strategies for architecture validation, bring-up, and post-silicon debug.

• Mentor and provide technical leadership to cross-functional engineering teams

• Present technical concepts and progress to internal teams, management, and external partners.

Other Responsibilities:

• Ensure security, safety, and system-level design compliance in architecture, adhering to relevant standards (e.g., ISO 26262, IEC 61508).

Required Qualifications:

• Deep experience architecting custom silicon, ASIC, or SoC designs (digital/mixed-signal).

• Expertise in hardware system partitioning, IP integration, interconnect protocols, memory hierarchies, and clock/power domain management.

• Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering or related field

• Strong knowledge of top-down architecture flows, performance modeling, EDA tools, and verification strategies.

• Familiarity with multi-discipline integration, including analog, RF, and software/firmware/hardware interfaces.

• Thorough understanding of modern interface standards (AXI, PCIe, DDR/LpDDR, MIPI, USB, etc.).

• Excellent problem-solving, debugging, and system-level thinking skills.

• Strong communication, technical writing, and project leadership skills.

Preferred Qualifications:

• 15+ years of experience in custom silicon, ASIC, or SoC development with a track record of leading Architecture.

• Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering or related field

• Demonstrated project leadership in multi-site or cross-disciplinary environments.

• Experience in domains such as Physical AI, automotive, networking, storage, security, or advanced compute.

• Involvement in strategic planning, IP/vendor evaluations, and cross-functional technical reviews.

• History of patents, publications, or industry engagement is a plus.