Electronics Engineer for Motion Control (BE-CEM-EDL-2024-124-GRAP)

Your responsibilities

Motion control applications at CERN are often characterised by challenging requirements, such as high positioning precision (in the order of 1 ppm) in extremely radioactive environment (i.e. Total Ionizing Dose up to 30 MGray) and axes synchronization below one ms. These demanding specifications are particularly relevant for the Beam Intercepting Devices (BIDs), such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) collimators. 

A new, high performance field Sensors Acquisition and Motion Control framework (SAMbuCa) is currently under development for the renovation of the LHC collimators' control system based on a PXIe platform to address these challenges. 

The project team is part of: 

• The BE Department, responsible for the beam generation, acceleration, diagnostics, controls and performance optimisation for the LHC and its injector accelerators.
• The CEM Group, responsible for development and maintenance of controls hardware and low-level software, electronics design, production and radiation tolerance, mechatronics and robotics, test and measurement systems.
• The EDL Section, responsible for the development and support of a collection of general-purpose electronic modules for controls and data acquisition.

As an Electronics Engineer working in the SAMbuCa project you will:

• Develop a generic, reusable HDL module that supports the core features of the SPEXI7U, to be used by all applications that will be based on that board;
• Implement a reference design for the SPEXI7U, using the above HDL module;
• Migrate the existing motion control application (combination of SPEXI7U + FMC-MFE) to also use the above HDL module for the common SPEXI7U features;
• Collaborate with your colleagues in the hardware/software co-design process, where HDL, firmware for the MPSoC CPUs, Linux device drivers and host applications are developed and reviewed together;
• Develop automated tests, to be run on real hardware during Continuous Integration (CI).

Your profile

Skills and/or knowledge

Required skills & experience:

• Architecture of Xilinx MPSoC;
• FPGA design and simulation (VHDL and Verilog) using Vivado;
• Bare-metal programming in C using Xilinx Vitis;
• Git-based development;
• Hardware debugging and testing using laboratory instrumentation.

Advantageous skills & experience:

• Electronic circuit design;
• Motion control;
• TCL scripting for Xilinx Vivado and Vitis;
• GitLab based code reviews, merge requests and CI pipelines;
• Python and PyTest;
• Linux device drivers. 

Language skills:

• Fluent in English, the ability to work in French would be an advantage.

Eligibility criteria:

• You are a national of a CERN Member or Associate Member State.
• You have a professional background in Electronics Engineer for Motion Control (or a related field) and have either:
  • a Master's degree with 2 to 6 years of post-graduation professional experience;
  • or a PhD with no more than 3 years of post-graduation professional experience.
• You have never had a CERN fellow or graduate contract before.

Job closing date: 21.08.2024 at 23:59h (midnight) CEST.

Job reference: BE-CEM-EDL-2024-124-GRAP

Contract duration: 24 months, with a possible extension up to 36 months maximum.

Target start date: 01-October-2024

What we offer

• A monthly stipend ranging between 6212 and 6828 Swiss Francs per month (net of tax).
• Coverage by CERN's comprehensive health scheme (for yourself, your spouse and children), and membership of the CERN Pension Fund.
• Depending on your individual circumstances: installation grant; family, child and infant allowances; payment of travel expenses at the beginning and end of contract.
• 30 days of paid leave per year.
• On-the-job and formal training at CERN as well as in-house language courses for English and/or French.

About us

At CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, physicists and engineers are probing the fundamental structure of the universe. Using the world's largest and most complex scientific instruments, they study the basic constituents of matter - fundamental particles that are made to collide together at close to the speed of light. The process gives physicists clues about how particles interact, and provides insights into the fundamental laws of nature. Find out more on http://home.cern.

We are on a Quest. A Journey into discovery like no other. Bring your expertise to our unique work and develop your knowledge and skills at pace. Join world-class subject matter experts on unique projects, in a Quest for greater knowledge and deeper understanding.

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Diversity has been an integral part of CERN's mission since its foundation and is an established value of the Organization. Employing a diverse workforce is central to our success.