NXP Interview Experience | (Pool Campus Drive)

It was a pool campus drive for Full time employment and Internship (Batch 2019 B.Tech/M.tech). 3 colleges were called at NXP Noida office: IIIT Delhi (my college), IGDTUW and Punjab Engineering College.

50 students in total registered for the drive.
We were called at 8 am. They provided breakfast and Round 1 started at 9:30 am.

Round 1: (Pen paper round)
(90 minutes)

The paper had two sections.
Section I: 8 questions(Theory + Programming)
Section II: 22 questions (C MCQs)
Both sections have to be completed in 90 minutes.

Section I:Theory + Programming Questions:

1. Write a C Program to implement atoi function. Handle all corner cases including wrong inputs.
   That is, implement the following functionality:
   int val = atoi (“1234”)
   printf(“%d”, val); // output = 1234 ( a integer equivalent number)
2. What is reentrant code?
3. What is a critical section?
4. Explain the DMA technique with specific 4-5 points.
5. Explain declaration and definition of a variable with suitable example.
6. Aptitude question
7. Aptitude question
8. Write a C program to create a structure having one field to input age, and another field to store next pointer to the next node. Create a linked list and take input the ages of 10 people in those nodes in a for loop.

Section II: C MCQs
Questions were mainly from following topics: Need of Volatile keyword, normal pointers operations including dangling pointers, questions to check the understanding of uninitialized pointers, arrays.

They gave the lunch after Round 1 was over, and after it they announced the results of Round 1.
They shorlisted a total of 19 students for Round 2 (i.e. Interviews)

(Rounds 2, 3 and 4 consisted of 2 interviewers).

Round 2: C and Data structure based
(40-45 minutes)

1. Have you made any project using C language?
   I made one project in M.Tech (Implementing the Demand Paging in xv6 OS), but forgot to tell and I answered as No.
2. Tell Compilation process of C program.
   https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/compiling-a-c-program-behind-the-scenes/
3. Print Hello World without semicolon in C.
   https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/print-hello-world-without-semicolon-in-ccpp/
4. Then he asked what all data structures I know.
5. He asked to write code: Given an integer number, check if that number is a power of 2 or not. I wrote the code using bitwise operator.
   https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/program-to-find-whether-a-no-is-power-of-two/
6. Given a Binary Search Tree, Write a C code to insert a new node in it.
   https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/binary-search-tree-set-1-search-and-insertion/
7. Other interviewer asked:
   Given 2 sorted linked list, write code to merge these linked lists to output 3rd linked list which is also sorted. (Do not use extra space)
   https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/merge-two-sorted-lists-place/
8. Given an 8 x 8 chessboard with all the white and black pieces and 2 players have to play. Construct suitable data structure to represent the chessboard and pieces.
   https://stackoverflow.com/questions/39874/how-do-i-model-a-chessboard-when-programming-a-computer-to-play-chess
9. Then the interviewers asked me do I have any questions to ask them?

Round 2: Computer Architecture and OS based:
(25-30 minutes)

1. First interviewer asked me to rate myself in CA out of 5. I answered 3/5
   He asked me to show the interfacing of microprocessor with memory using microprocessor pins.
   I said I don’t know this much of pins interfacing.He said it’s ok.
   (But later I realized I can tell about read, write pins, address bus, data bus by giving a little reference to pins at least).
2. Then he asked what are interrupts? I told it and gave reference to internal and external interrupts.
   Then he asked me about these with examples.
3. What is ISR? How is it different form normal functions?
4. Where is ISR stored?
5. Then he asked me to explain Interrupts and its handling as soon as I press keyboard key.
6. Now the other interviewer asked OS questions:
   (Firstly, he asked which subjects have I taught during teaching Job.)
   He asked me that you have teaching Experience in College(I have 5 years of Teaching Experience at Graphic Era Hill University, Dehradun), so tell me what is the basic difference between process and thread.Why actually do we need thread and in what scenario will it be useful to use thread.
7. If our system is multcore and I wrote a program.Will the program be run by threads on its own or user has to do something in code to utilize threads concept in multicore system?
8. Draw process state Diagram. Explain the scenarios/events in which the transitions from one state to other will occur. He asked it for all states.
9. Why do we need process synchronization and tell mechanisms to deal with it?

Round 3:(Mixed) HR + C based

(25-30 minutes)

1. Tell me about your family and hobbies.
   In hobbies, I told reading motivational books as one of my hobbies. He asked which book have I read recently? I told the book name. He asked what have I learned from it.
2. Which subjects have I taught during my teaching Job?
3. Where do I see myself after 5 years from now?
4. Then he asked have you worked on Linux or windows? I said I am familiar with both.
5. Static keyword in C and its scope.
   https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/static-variables-in-c/
6. Then he asked: You have a header file which contains a static variable. You wrote a C program and included that header file in both programs. Now explain what will happen to static variable value?
7. Explain the process of generating a .exe file from a C source program.
   https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/compiling-a-c-program-behind-the-scenes/
8. Other interviewer asked me about one of my project from my resume (It was made in a team of 2). He asked me to explain my contribution to this project. I explained it.
9. Then he asked who amongst the two of us teammates contributed most of the part in the project. I said both had equal contributions. He smiled at this.

HR round:
(30-35minutes)

HR person asked me to feel free and was talking in Hindi and English Both.

1. Tell me about your positive and negative points?
2. Asked me about my family and fathers Job?
3. Why I joined teaching after B.Tech, not IT company?
   I told him the reasons and he grilled me on this.
4. The culture in the teaching profession and corporate is different.Will you be able to manage?
5. So, are you comfortable if I give you the joining for Banglore location now?
   (I am from Dehradun. The interviewer asks this question to the candidate to check if he is comfortable with relocation)
6. Then he asked me to ask any question if I have for him. I asked him do they have any fixed number of people to hire for this drive. He answered.

After that, he said that they will send the results to the College Placement office.
After 4 days, results were declared and I was offered an Internship at Noida location.