Senior RF Engineer (Contract)

Senior RF Engineer

An engineer to design, implement, and validate a flexible, wideband (greater than 6GHz), high dynamic range (more than 60dB) transceiver RF front end (amplifiers, attenuators, up/downconversion, ADC/DAC) and corresponding clock distribution network (using commercial off the shelf components) to interface with a digital system (FPGA), while effectively communicating the design, progress, challenges, and updates to a broader team.

Mandatory Skills

Experience in all of the following areas:

• High Frequency (>20GHz) RF front end design
• Experience designing analog interfaces to high speed ADCs and DACs (>325MSPS)
• End-to-end experience with design and manufacturing of RF boards (schematic capture, layout, initial bring up)
• Working knowledge of C or C++

Minimum Skills

Experience in at least three of the following areas:

• Transistor based LNA Design (<1.5dB)
• Wideband (DC-6GHz+) RF front end design
• Designing wideband matching networks (>2GHz BW)
• Designing wideband RF networks for RF/LO synthesizers (100MHz-6GHz+)
• Use of network analyzers to determine phase noise issues.
• Characterization and optimization of analog front end design
• Design of phase coherent clock distribution networks supporting >8 end devices

Optional Skills

The following skills are desired but not necessarily required for the position:

• Thermal management and passive cooling
• Familiarity with beam forming techniques
• Familiarity with phased arrays and their RF and analog implementation
• Knowledge of clock distribution and timing with JESD204 standard
• Experience designing low jitter (under 1 picosecond) clock distribution to digital and radio devices
• Experience designing low noise power systems (switching/linear regulators)
• Familiarity with antenna design and selection criteria for wideband or multiband applications
• Experience in development from design to manufacturing
• Experience with open source software

NOTE: This is a contractor position for 6 months with option for +6 month extension.

Work Location: In person