Physical Design Intern

Job Description

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About Etched

Etched is at the forefront of innovation, building the world’s first AI inference system purpose-built for transformers. Our cutting-edge ASICs deliver over 10x higher performance and dramatically lower cost and latency compared to a B200 GPU. This breakthrough technology enables the creation of products currently deemed impossible with traditional GPUs, such as real-time video generation models and extremely deep & parallel chain-of-thought reasoning agents.

Backed by hundreds of millions from top-tier investors and staffed by a team of leading engineers, Etched is actively redefining the infrastructure layer for the fastest-growing industry in history.

Job Title: Physical Design Intern

Job Summary

As a Physical Design Intern at Etched, you will play a crucial role in bringing our innovative front-end designs to life in silicon. You will contribute directly to improving iteration speed to final signoff, a critical factor in our development cycle. Your responsibilities will include:

• Assisting in the development and execution of Physical Design flows.
• Performing tasks such as synthesizing blocks.
• Automating final design checks to ensure robust designs.
• Providing valuable input and advising on RTL design decisions.

Minimum Qualifications (What We’re Looking For)

You may be a good fit if you have:

• Progress towards a Bachelor’s, Master’s, or PhD degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field.
• Familiarity with high-speed digital logic.
• Exposure to ASIC or SoC design concepts.
• Familiarity with hardware description languages (HDL) such as SystemVerilog, or verification methodologies like UVM, or scripting with Python.
• Familiarity with verification work and writing test benches.
• Familiarity with physical design flows and tooling.
• A strong ability to learn quickly about transformers and other aspects of modern artificial intelligence.

Preferred Qualifications (Strong Candidates May Also Have)

Strong candidates may also have experience with:

• Familiarity with transformer models and machine learning concepts.
• Familiarity with numerical representations and functions (RTL).
• Familiarity with clocking and reset schemes (RTL/Physical Design).
• Experience with UVM or formal verification (Design Verification).
• Proficiency in programming with Python or another scripting language.

We encourage you to apply even if you do not believe you meet every single qualification.

Internship Program Highlights

• A 12-week paid internship experience, running from June to August 2026.
• Generous housing support for those relocating to San Jose.
• Daily lunch and dinner provided in our office.
• Based at our office in San Jose, CA (Santana Row).
• Direct mentorship from industry leaders and world-class engineers.
• An unparalleled opportunity to work on one of the most important problems of our time.

Our Philosophy & Culture (How We’re Different)

Etched is built on the belief of the Bitter Lesson: that most progress in AI stems from leveraging more FLOPs for model training and inference. Our core mission is to provide these increased FLOPs by building model-specific hardware (ASICs), recognizing that larger training runs are driving consolidation around fewer model architectures, creating a significant market for specialized ASICs.

We are a fully in-person team located in San Jose (Santana Row), fostering a collaborative and dynamic environment. We greatly value engineering skills and maintain no artificial boundaries between engineering and research. We expect all our technical staff, including interns, to contribute to both as needed, promoting a holistic and impactful approach to problem-solving.

Contact Information

For any questions regarding the internship program, please contact internships@etched.com.

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