2026 Intern, AI Algorithm NPU Simulation (Spring/Summer)

Lab Summary: 

The Samsung SoC Architecture Lab explores innovative SoC architecture, key IP blocks (CPU, GPU, NPU), bus / memory subsystem and multimedia subsystems for future Samsung Galaxy products (Smartphones, IoT and future devices) echoing Samsung’s AI for All strategy. We are defining the high performance SoC architecture development for various Galaxy device lineups. This lab collaborates with Samsung MX headquarter team, key R&D teams around the globe and Samsung's strategic SoC partners to innovate and reinvent technology that will positively impact hundred-millions of people around the world via the Galaxy flagship products.

Position Summary: 

We are looking for interns to help build programmable neural processing unit (NPU) simulator and AI algorithm (camera image and video enhancement AI algorithms, multimodal generative AI algorithms such as LLM, Diffusion LLM and the latest AI algorithm architectures) simulation on NPU for next-generation AI hardware. Software prototyping and simulation experience with focus on AI algorithms and/or NPU SW/HW is required for this position.

Position Responsibilities: 

• Work with team members to build NPU simulator which mimics the behavior of NPU hardware within a mobile SoC (System on a Chip) at cycle-accurate or bit-accurate level.
• Work with the algorithm team to cover the use cases including camera, video, diffusion, LLM, VLM, VLA applications.
• Analyze AI algorithms and create neural network operators to NPU simulator.
• AI algorithm quantization to reduce model size while maintaining model accuracy.
• Create scheduling mechanism (compiler) to distribute AI model tasks to NPU hardware or simulator.
• Simulate AI algorithms on NPU hardware or simulator and identify the bottlenecks of hardware, such as memory bound or compute bound, and make optimal hardware proposal to mitigate the bottlenecks.
• Communicate the results across related engineering audiences (SW, HW, Architecture, Leadership).

Required Skills: 

• Currently pursuing or completed a MS/PhD degree in Computer Science, Electrical/Computer Engineering, or a related discipline
• Proficient in C/C++, Python and MATLAB programming languages
• Hands-on experience with GitHub, PyTorch, TensorFlow, Visual Studio, ONNX libraries
• In-depth understanding of camera enhancement algorithms, computational photography, CNN, transformer, diffusion, LLM/VLM, AI model quantization
• NPU hardware micro architecture, on-chip memory, DMA, memory compression, SIMD
• Extensive experience on implementing prototype code
• Strong grasp of memory and computation requirements and image quality expectations of state-of-the-art algorithms
• Experience on identifying image/video quality metrics
• Effective verbal and written communication skills to work with people across a wide range of disciplines and experience