PhD Position – Hardware-Software Co-Design for Efficient AI/ML Accelerators (f/m/d)

Join a vibrant, international R&D team at NXP Semiconductors, where academic excellence meets real-world impact. Our team includes several engineers holding a PhD and an independent university lecturer, all working at the forefront of AI Processor Architecture for edge applications. In this role, your research will contribute both to academic advancement and to the development of technologies that power billions of AI-enabled edge devices. At NXP, you’ll collaborate closely with fellow PhD students, as well as Technical Directors and Fellows—our technological thought leaders. You will be co-supervised by a professor from a well-established European (typically German) university, alongside your industrial supervisor, who also holds a university lectureship and brings both academic insight and practical experience to your research journey. The environment actively supports publications, conference travel, and academic exchange.

If you’re passionate about sustainable AI hardware and want your research to reach millions of users in actual products, this is your chance to make that impact while earning a PhD !

🔍 Research Focus (flexible within scope):

• Hardware-aware training for low-bitwidth quantization and approximate computing
• Hardware and Software for on-device, low-precision training (e.g., federated learning)
• Compiler algorithms for constrained hardware environments
• Co-design of domain-specific AI applications (e.g., Radar, UWB, Health) and hardware architectures

🧠 Your Profile:

• Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field
• Strong interest in ML systems, embedded AI, and hardware/software co-design
• Experience with Python, C++, and ML frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, TensorFlow)
• Familiarity with digital design (e.g., Verilog/VHDL), compilers, or embedded systems is a plus

More information about NXP in Germany...