Bay Area Semiconductor Company Interview Experience — Seven-Round Analog/RF Onsite, No Offer

This was at a major semiconductor company in the Bay Area. I submitted my resume and the hiring manager reached out to me pretty quickly, and we scheduled a 45-minute phone interview. It mainly covered RF system questions — things like the difference between homodyne and heterodyne, and some matching and noise questions. The second round was onsite, seven interviews total. The first person asked about PLLs, including PLL stability, noise, and the Q of the VCO. The second person asked me to derive opamp noise, and asked about linearity and gain. The third person asked about RF matching, including LC matching, transmission line matching, opamp Bode plots, and noise cancelling. The fourth person was a director, and asked about the Q of the inductor in a VCO, plus more opamp questions. The fifth person asked about ring oscillators, current sources, and some basic transistor questions. The sixth person was a layout engineer — it was mostly small talk, getting to know the company. By that point I was exhausted, so I just chatted along. The seventh person was a tech lead, who asked me about inductive coupling, opamp applications, and charge pumps.

I felt pretty good after the interview — I answered most of the questions, though some of my answers weren't fully complete, and for a few I needed a hint before I could work through the derivation. In the end I didn't get an offer, which was a bit of a shame.