What Does It Take To Become A Computer Architect?

Computer architects traditionally focus on high-level design of chips. This can range from SoC design (component choosing), to designing the functionality of the branch predictor. At Intel, architects come up with high level ideas for improving system performance (e.g. a new cache idea such as a trace cache or uop cache) and evaluate the design in a spreadsheet (very inaccurate) or in a C simulator (somewhat inaccurate). If it meets requirements in terms of performance, power, and area, then the architect will write a spec for the feature and hand it off to the designer, who will implement the feature in Verilog.

To do this, an architect needs to be able to come up with innovative ideas to solve hard problems. Also, the architect needs to be good enough at coding in C/C++ to be able to implement and test out the idea in the simulator, which is a major software program consisting of hundreds of C files. Since implementing the idea in C is much easier than the next few steps (implementation, verification, place and route), generally even the largest company like Intel (eighty-thousand employees) only has a few architects (hundreds). For this reason, it’s extremely hard to get a position as an architect at any major firm.

To become an architect, the traditional path is to get a PhD in Computer Architecture at a top ten school. There are a few professors which disproportionately supply computer architects to top companies (for example, Yale Patt at the University of Texas at Austin). Simply graduating with a PhD is not enough: you must have a strong selection of papers in the area of architecture (or in a related field, e.g. Simulation, OS or Compilers) or some unusual skill (e.g. proficient at FPGA implementation). After all, there are tens of PhD students graduating from top schools fighting over a few open spots. Generally speaking, these PhD students who are hired have done at least one internship at the company that is hiring them. The professor provides the hookup to get the internship, although it’s not unheard of to get internships through mailing list postings.

The other method to become an architect is promotion from within. You can start out as a recent college grad, get a job at a company in design or verification, and transfer from team to team until eventually you end up on the architecture team. It’s probably a lot easier to transfer into newly formed teams and become an architect in this fashion. Once you become an architect, it’s a lot easier to transfer onto other architecture projects, within the company or even to a different company.