Research or development job

Although semiconductor chip makers do very high-tech work, not all of it can be classified as research. (in fact most of it is not research).
My definition of research is the pursuit of new knowledge, new truths. The intention is only to prototype and publish some new techniques or inventions, but not really to make a product out of them. Development engineering starts out at these ideas that came out of research and creating products out of them.
While there is a lot of thought needed in development jobs and there are challenging tasks, there is also a lot of drudgery.

If you are looking to become a researcher, you need a PhD in nearly every case because these days 33% of engineers have Master's degrees in the US. (Source EDN Survey 2008) Also the field you choose for your research has a big impact on your future. Entering nascent fields like nanotechnology, quantum electronics, bio computation, EUV lithography, natural language processing could ensure that you do get to do research eventually. VLSI Design as a broad field does include a lot of different areas, but they have been around for a couple of decades now. So it is a good field to be in if you plan to get a development engineering job.