Request Expert

Expert is an RF/Microwave Engineering Consultant with 33 years of experience in the areas of RF, Microwave, Wireless, Analog, and high-speed Digital/FPGA designs.

Expert recently completed a Patent Research project on an ITC Section 337 lawsuit that involved a number of international companies. He applied his RF/Tuner and general Electrical Engineering background experience to analyze and show in detail how the defendants circuits and product elements were infringing upon the claims of the plaintiff.

In addition to this one case involving a particular area of electronics design and Patents (TV Tuners), Expert has a deep background in all types of electronics technology. He can readily conduct Patent Searches, understand and provide proof of Patent Validity, and provide proof of Patent Infringement for most areas of electronics. This includes typical electronics systems and design elements, such as Wireless links/systems, Wearable technology, Computing systems, Processors, Memory, Programmable Logic (i.e. FPGAs), Semiconductors, Displays, Batteries, Antennas, etc.

In addition, for many of the designs that Expert has completed over the years, he has also completed Patent Searches to determine initial viability to justify pursuit of a Patent, followed by writing of Patent Technical Descriptions and Claims. He did this for a recent Patent that he was the author of and was awarded.

Expert has a complete Lab to support testing and characterization of electronics, which can be used to add weight/justification to arguments made toward proving defendant product infringement, for example.

Expert has attained a significant level of experience in doing work at his own office for my Clients over the last 25 years with excellent success, and believe that I can assist in clients' needs for Patent Research. Past Clients include Susman Godfrey, Goodrich Aerospace, National Semiconductor, Motorola, and others.

GOODRICH AEROSPACE
RF/System/Design Engineer
10/05 to 10/06

Designed Airborne Zigbee and Chirp based 2.4Ghz ISM band Wireless Data Link:

* Evaluated 802.11 approach to the design. Determined that it would not support the highly dispersive Airborne environment. Decided on dual approach of Zigbee and Chirp at 2.4Ghz.
* Designed programmable Analog Bandwidth/Gain ADC input circuit, with variable bit rate, to allow various analog signals to be quantized and sent by wireless RF link.
* Designed RF circuitry which included Zigbee and Chirp based Transceivers, RF Amplifier with programmable constant current source, RF Balun, RF Output Filter, RF receive protection circuit, Diversity Antenna system.
* Designed Microcontroller/Memory circuitry using Atmel RISC based low power device.
* Designed double-redundant Lithium Ion Battery Charge/Discharge/Protection circuit to provide power to all circuitry.
* All circuit designs were carefully done to dissipate a minimum amount of power, insuring long life for the Battery Pack.
GENERAL INSTRUMENT
RF Project/Design Engineer
2/96-7/97

Responsible for the design and development of the SurfBoard ATM Two-Way Cable Modem Client Unit:

* Designed a 64QAM Downstream Downconverter/Demodulator using low cost components.
Demodulator employed inner Trellis, outer Reed-Solomon coding with Raised Cosine
baseband filtering. Exceeded BER requirements through careful cascade
Gain/NF/Intermod Analysis.
* Designed a QPSK Upstream Modulator, including Randomizer/Differential Encoder
logic as well as QPSK I/Q Modulator/Driver. Verified adjacent channel
interference and BER of design.
* Oversaw development of Digital Hardware/Software through an outside Vendor.
This included development of Downstream ATM cell delineation technique, Time
Sync Control Loop design, and Upstream Encoding format.
* Part of team developing Down and Upstream Phy Layer specifications for Cable
Modems. Generated Analyses and Specifications.
* All designs were accomplished at very low cost, with worst case analyses to
assure high production Yield. Deliveries of the product are starting at 50K-100K/year.
NATIONAL SEMICONDUCTOR
RF Design Engineer
7/97-5/98

Responsible for the design and development of the Application Circuit for the DVB compliant QPSK Satellite Receiver Chipset:

* Designed the L-Band I/Q Tuner, 90Mhz A/D, Power Supply, and LVDS Data Interface circuitry for a
QPSK Satellite Receiver. Designed successfully at high performance and low cost (2-layer PWB), to
show potential users the QPSK chip can be implemented reliably and cost effectively. Verified BER
performance to within 0.5dB of specification. Participated in QPSK chip architecture reviews.
* Designed a QPSK Baseband simulation test system, to allow for testing of the QPSK Demodulator IC
at it's analog or digital baseband input directly. Designed an I/Q Differential Encoder/LUT and a
100Mhz FIR filter into an Altera FLEX 10K FPGA to provide for Nyquist raised cosine response of the
serial input I/Q signal. Calculated and verified filter tap coefficients on Mathcad and MATLAB.
Designed 100Mhz D/A Converters for the 10-bit FPGA output data, with programmable D/A
Anti-Aliasing Filters, I/Q Downconverter, and all Control circuitry. Ran Analysis on frequency
selective fading for test. Supervised layout of PCB, insuring noise was not added to input QPSK signal.
THALES AVIONICS
RF Project/Design Engineer
2/99 to 4/02

Responsible for RF Design of I-Series In-Flight Entertainment System. RF System design,
Video/FM Headend and Seatend design:

* System Design: Full RF Plant Analysis: System Gain, BW, S/N, IP3, CTB, CSO, using
SYSCALC/ MATHCAD.
* Headend Video Transmitter: Ultra-miniature 50-800Mhz Headend CATV SSB Video Transmitter,
Differential Video/Audio Input Buffers, Dual Stereo Audio MPX generators, Video Modulator, Vestigial
Sideband Filter, 6Mhz BW I/Q Splitter, I/Q SSB Upconverter, Synthesized 62.5Khz step LO,
Programmable Tracking Filter, Midband 50dB Video AGC circuit.
* Headend FM Audio Transmitter: Differential Audio Input Buffer, Stereo MPX Generator,
Modulator Synthesizer/Output buffer.
* Seatend Receiver: 50-800 Mhz RF Input Buffers/Digital AGC circuit, Stereo FM
Synthesizer/Tuner/Demodulator with 4.5Mhz Audio PLL, 50-800Mhz Video Tuner (on-board 32V
switching power supply, Video/Audio Demod/Decoder with dual Stereo Audio Decoders/Channels,
Audio Switch/Volume control
* Supervised all RF board layouts. Successfully ran functional tests on all circuit boards.
GOODRICH AEROSPACE
RF/Digital System/Design Engineer
5/03 to 7/04

Designed very high bandwidth Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR) system used to find small variations in impedance characteristic of aircraft wiring and harnessing:

* Created system requirements with customer assistance. Included requirements for high speed Step Generator and ADC.
* Designed proprietary Step Generator circuit for TDR output, including dual port to allow both stimulus and sampling. Prototyped circuit and achieved goal of risetime < 200pS.
* Devised method to support 5Ghz repetitive ADC bandwidth used for TDR reflected waveform sampling.
* Designed high resolution 200pS phase shift clock circuit using DDS, 5Ghz ADC including anti-alias filtering, high speed interface/control CPLD, Memory circuit to store sampled data, PCMCIA interface to allow interface/control to entire circuit.
* Entire circuit was implemented onto a small PCMCIA form factor board, which plugged into HP IPAQ battery powered control PC.
* Successfully tested the 1st prototype, achieved 5Ghz high bandwidth TDR performance. Customer was able to find very small perturbations in wire impedance of harnesses returned from the field, successfully showing locations in the wiring that were about to fail. Delivered design analyses, test data, and drawings to customer.