Facebook to design own processors
The job, based at Menlo Park, California, covers the creation of firmware and driver development, silicon architecture and micro-architecture and keeping Facebook’s silicon strategy in-line with the company’s long-range objectives.
The applicant is expected to have at least 15 years of experience in managing SoC development teams at the director or manager level as a track record of first pass ASIC and systems success.
The company also wants an ASIC and FPGA designer to work in the same location. “The candidate would need to work with software and system engineers to understand limitations of current hardware and use their expertise to build custom solutions targeted at multiple verticals including AI/ML, compression, and video encoding,” the advert states, displaying Facebook’s interest in artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Facebook already has electronics engineers working on its Oculus virtual reality headsets but the advertised job is in the infrastructure division suggesting Facebook is looking to build its own processors for use in datacenters and edge-of-network devices such as smart speakers and terminals.
Facebook was a founder of the Open Compute Project in 2011 and is one of a few companies that are extremely high volume data center operators.
Facebook has reportedly said it will need switch ASICs with optical interfaces within three years for its next big network upgrade. The timing of that network upgrade could coincide with the time when an SoC/ASIC development team could start to make an impact within the company
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