Consulting and program management

TURNING CUSTOMER'S IDEAS INTO PRODUCTS

I work with the customer to understand its concepts and needs and the possible ideas for the solution, analyzing the technologies and choosing the best approach for the manufacturing. If the project is simple enough to be developed by myself directly, then I will jump-start the development at my home office or on customer's site, if requested. If the project is more complex, I'll help the customer to select a development team of specialized professionals to carry on the tasks in the most efficient way, while I will manage such team and report to the customer as a Program Manager. Whether the development is simple or complex, I will leverage my wide network of contacts in the electronics supply chain to get the best support for the chosen technology. Once the product is ready to be manufactured, I can count on many well known EMS companies to get the system assembled locally, in Europe and Asia.

Main development activities

ELECTRONICS DESIGN

With 17 years of experience in the development of electronic systems, I base my designs on known-to-work solutions mixed with new technologies, always keeping my expertise up-to-date on daily basis. In my spare time I test interesting new ICs and solutions to offer to the customer the latest technology advances, while providing solutions already tested and verified.
My standard workflow starts from the problem analysis and the definition of the most viable - and simple - solution. The parts selection will be done in cooperation with the suppliers/distributors for being sure that, if support is needed, it will be accessible without delays. For precision analog circuits all the new solutions will be simulated and separately tested on the bench, with breadboard prototyping or with home-etched PCB for fine-pitch designs, to avoid bad surprises in the final design. Then all the circuit will be captured in EDA software, according to customer's specifications. All the designs are made for manufacturing, meaning that all the components are selected and circuit design is made to ease the PCB layout and to assemble it efficiently in mass production. I'm specialized in ther the years I designed MCU- an FPGA-based digital systems, anlog and mixed-signal circuits for sensors, audio/video applications, network-connected devices, power-supply boards, M2M and IoT devices.

PCB DESIGN

Skilled in multilayer layout, I've designed PCBs up to 8 layers in PTH, SMD and Chip-on-Board (COB) technologies, involving BGA, QFN, fine-pitch IC packages, passives down to 0201, Chip-Scale-Packages, Wire-Bonding and Flip Chip.
I'm specialized in microcontroller and FPGA-based designs, including switching power supplies, analog sensor acquisition, high-current load circuitry and fast data transmission lines, such as DDR2 RAM or high-speed parallel and LVDS buses, as well as USB 3.0 and Gigabit Ethernet. Some latest designs also include RF capabilities in the 13.56MHz and 2.4GHz frequency range. During my experience I've designed also power electronics, switching power supplies, inductive load controllers as well as battery-operated and low-power designs. However high-speed serial and parallel buses are a present anywhere, nowadays, hence I got some training and experience on EMC, EMI, and signal integrity issues that I always keep in mind while designing. Soldering issues and manufacturing processes are also important to understand and consider during the design phase, for smoother and fail-safe production flow.

FIRMWARE DEVELOPMENT

I have several years of experience in the development of firmware, for 8-bit and 32-bit microcontrollers in Assembly and C programming languages. I've worked with NXP, Atmel and SiLabs 8051 based devices, ST Microelectronics ST6, ST7, STM8 microcontrollers, Microchip AVR, NXP ARM7-TDMI, and currently working with ARM Cortex-M based micros like ST Microelectronics STM32 (Cortex-M0, M3, M4), Cypress PSoC (Cortex-M0, M4), NXP Kinetis L (Cortex-M0+). I also work on ARM Cortex-A based application processors (TI Sitara) and ARM9 SoC (Atmel SAM9G) under Embedded Linux platforms. Regarding the programmable logic I can offer my experience in designing with CPLD (Xilinx XC9500XL and Coolrunner-II families, Atmel SPLD), and FPGA based systems (Xilinx Spartan-3, Spartan-6, Artix-7, Lattice iCE40). I took some training on low-end Xilinx Zynq-7000 SoC. In the latest years I got some experience in FreeRTOS, ChibiOS, uC-Linux, Linux Embedded operating systems. For PC-based debug and test purposes, I can develop simple cross-platform application software and GUIs in Python under GNU/Linux and MS Windows.

DEBUGGING, TESTING, MEASUREMENTS

For fast development support and functional test and validation, I can manage quick handmade prototype assembly in my lab down to 0.5mm pitch SMT ICs and passives down to 0402. For HDI and complex designs I can rely on some local PCB manufacturers and EMS companies that offer fast assembly services. Bring-up, functional test and validation of prototypes can be done at my lab. I support the customer to develop test plans and design hardware and software test platforms for quality control after production, eventually contracting the mechanical design to trusted partners. I will assist the customer in field-test runs and support it for on-site debugging and after-sales problem solving.

Manufacturing, reversing, security

INDUSTRIALIZATION AND PRODUCTION

Once the prototype is ready, it's not trivial to get it in production efficiently. I help the customer to get the best quality at the right price, choosing the right assembly and soldering technologies, at local EMS partners, in Europe or in Asia for best effectiveness and price. The customer will get benefit from my long-standing experience gained in more than 15 years of close cooperation with electronic systems manufacturers worldwide. Additional technologies, such as metal stamping, die casting, keyboard and display manufacturing, can become key factors in a design, for which I can also help to find the right partners.

REVERSE ENGINEERING, DATA SECURIY

My experience, passion and curiosity in the field of data security, both in hardware and in software, is now put to the service of the customer for designing products that can prevent data loss, tampering, copycat and are certifiable against security standards. My experience in black-box hardware and software analisys, by direct probing, fuzzy methods, and machine-level code disassembly, can be used to reverse engineer obsolete or partly-known parts and designs, where this is permitted by law. My "hacker" lifestyle and lateral thinking abilities will grant to the customer creative solutions and new ideas.