Key words: Hardware Design Engineer, Analogue, digital, microcontroller, microprocessor, SRAM, DRAM, SDRAM, VHDL, PCP layouts, volume manufacture


Primary Skills: 5 years experience in hardware development for volume manufacture, on time, to cost and the required quality
The Company:

Our Hertfordshire based client has been established for more than 20 years and operates within a diverse international market with their solutions found in blue chip customers in countries all over the world. They are a leader in their specialist field and their products are designed in house.

The Role:
The candidate will be required to work on either of the two sites, Ascot and Hemel Hempstead that our client has and will not be permanently based in any one. Therefore the candidate would ideally be residing midway between the 2 locations. It should also be noted that the successful candidate would be required to undergo security clearances by the UK government.
Main Duties and Responsibilities
Working within small development teams, you will be involved in the full life-cycle of hardware development from the initial requirements capture to post-development support and may be involved in any of the following:
• Producing product/functional specifications.
• Development of innovative and reliable analogue and digital designs, to satisfy the product/functional specifications.
• Developing the hardware solutions to the agreed timescales and carry out hardware testing, minimising the number of PCB iterations by being diligent in the early phases of the design.
• Take full responsibility for your designs but work on more complex designs in conjunction with other hardware engineers.
• Liaison with local and off-shore manufacturers as and when required.
• Producing documentation in line with formal procedures.
• Keeping abreast of technical advances and sharing your knowledge.
• Providing design support for reported problems on existing and new products.

Skills and Experience
ESSENTIAL SKILLS:
• Good understanding of analogue and digital fundamentals and demonstrable product design experience.
• Familiarity with microcontroller and microprocessor designs.
• Memory system design (SRAM, DRAM, SDRAM) and timing.
• Designing with programmable logic and using hardware description languages, particularly has to be fluent in VHDL or Verilog and must be able to take over previous VHDL based designs and enhance or modify as required.
• Design for reliability – taking into account worst case timing, noise, cross-talk, transmission line effects etc.
• Schematic capture (eg using OrCAD or Mentor Graphics tools).
• Experience of PCB layouts, and ensuring that sufficient information and guidance is provided to the PCB layout engineers for the PCB to be fit for purpose without unnecessary iterations.
• Testing and de-bugging of hardware using the right tools such as oscilloscopes and logic analysers.
• Specification and documentation of hardware designs to enable others to understand review and test them.
• Producing documentation to release to Manufacturing (BoMs, GAs, Schematics etc).
• Experience of design for EMC/ESD compliance.
• Strong IT skills, proficient in Word, Excel and PowerPoint or a technical drawing package such as Visio or EasyCAD.
• Effective communicator at all levels – both written and verbal.
• Ability to work in a well planned and structured manner without supervision.
• Ensuring ideally that the design is right first time, but not requiring more than one respin of the PCB or mechanics in any case.
DESIRABLE SKILLS:
• High-speed design knowledge, especially layout for high-speed.
• Knowledge of networking and protocols including ISDN, VoIP, Ethernet, Bridges, Routers, Switches, X.25, Serial Interfaces etc.
• Working to formal quality assurance procedures.
• Knowledge of Freescale processors, PowerPC, Ethernet controllers.
• Simulation experience, such analogue simulation using SPICE and digital simulation using VHDL and IBIS models.