Here, in our series on the latest EW BrightSparks of 2023, we highlight Vasiliki Xiradaki, a student at the University of Birmingham and a Digital Design Engineer at EnSilica.

Vasiliki started studying Electronic and Electrical Engineering at the University of Birmingham a few months after arriving in the UK from Greece. She pushed herself to adapt to the new educational system and culture as soon as possible, while working and studying at the same time she told us.

She is justifiably proud of the fact that, less than two years later, she received multiple internship offers from semiconductor companies and a scholarship from the UK Electronic Skills Foundations (UKESF). She also received excellent grades in most of her modules at university.

Note that to support herself financially, she was working two jobs alongside her studies.

It was after her second year at University that Vasiliki had a very successful 13-month placement with EnSilica, an ASIC design company.

Throughout her placement she encountered various aspects of IC design. For example, after she completed some initial training, she was put in the company’s satellite communications chip project, where she got started with directed block verification. She began further developing existing block-level testcases, focusing on testing the internal AMBA connectivity of the System-on-Chip (SoC).