Substrate IC Package Layout Design Engineer

About Etched

Etched is building hardware for frontier intelligence. We co-design chips, racks, software, and manufacturing to deliver best-in-class throughput and latency across both prefill and decode workloads. Our first products are heavily focused on inference. Backed by hundreds of millions from top-tier investors and staffed by leading engineers, Etched is redefining the infrastructure layer for the fastest growing industry in history.

Job Summary

As a Substrate IC Package Layout Design Engineer you will be responsible for the end-to-end design of complex IC substrate packages, supporting high-power consumption and high-speed signaling. The ideal candidate will have extensive experience with large substrate designs (>50mm), complex power delivery networks, and high-speed signaling solutions (up to and beyond 50GHz). You will work closely with silicon, signal integrity, power integrity, and system help co-design world class substates with OSAT providers. Intense focus on optimization for power delivery through substrate, pushing what’s possible.

Key Responsibilities

- IC Substrate Layout Design

- Lead the design and development of complex IC substrate layouts for high-power AI processors and accelerators.

- Design large (>50mm) and complex multi-layer substrate packages with high pin counts and dense routing requirements.

- Ensure robust power delivery designs capable of supporting >700W custom silicon solutions.

- High-Speed Signal Routing & Integrity

- Develop high-speed signal routing solutions capable of supporting >50GHz signaling while minimizing signal integrity issues such as loss and crosstalk.

- Collaborate with SI/PI engineers to define signal integrity and power integrity requirements and implement solutions in substrate layout.

- Advanced Packaging & CoWoS Integration

- Optimize CoWoS (Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate) interposer designs for thermal and electrical performance.

- Work closely with chip design, packaging, and manufacturing teams to ensure design feasibility and manufacturability.

- Design Validation & Verification

- Perform DRC (Design Rule Check) and LVS (Layout vs. Schematic) verification for all substrate designs.

- Develop and maintain design documentation and guidelines for future substrate designs.

- Support design reviews and provide technical guidance to junior team members.

You may be a good fit if you have

- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field.

- 10+ years of experience in IC substrate layout design for high-performance processors or accelerators.

- Extensive experience with large substrate packages (>50mm) and complex high-density layouts.

- Proven experience with high-power (700W+) package designs and robust power delivery networks.

- Expertise in high-speed signaling design (>50GHz) and mitigating signal integrity challenges (crosstalk, reflections, impedance mismatches).

- Strong experience with CoWoS (Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate) interposer design and the impact of the substrate design to support CoWos.

- Advanced proficiency in Allegro Package Designer (including constraint management, routing, and design verification).

- Deep understanding of SI/PI principles and how they apply to package-level design.

- Strong analytical skills and ability to work effectively in a fast-paced, cross-functional team environment.

Benefits

- Medical, dental, and vision packages with generous premium coverage

- $500 per month credit for waiving medical benefits

- Housing subsidy of $2k per month for those living within walking distance of the office

- Relocation support for those moving to San Jose (Santana Row)

- Various wellness benefits covering fitness, mental health, and more

- Daily lunch and dinner in our office

- Unlimited compute budget subject to ROI justification

How we’re different

Etched believes in the Bitter Lesson http://www.incompleteideas.net/IncIdeas/BitterLesson.html. We are the first inference-focused frontier AI system, betting early on transformer and transformer-like architectures and on increasing model sizes. Our addressable market is the entirety of inference, unlike many of our competitors.

We are a fully in-person team in San Jose (Santana Row), and greatly value engineering skills. We do not have boundaries between engineering and research, and we expect all of our technical staff to contribute to both and work across disciplines as needed.