Stuart D. Brorson

Tel: 914 589 9820
e-mail: sdb@cloud9.net

Summary of Resume: Hardware and systems engineer with ten year's industrial experience. Board design experience with analog, high-speed digital, and FPGA circuits. Programming experience in Matlab, Perl, Python, TCL, C (amongst others). Linux enthusiast since 1995. Scientific background; business development experience.

Personal: US Citizen.

Engineering skills:

Electronic design skills/tools: Experience with analog, digital, optical, microwave, FPGA, and CPLD design. Tools/languages used: DxDesigner/ViewDraw, gEDA/gaf, tclspice/ngspice, SpecctraQuest, Allegro, MicroSim (schematic capture, SPICE simulation, and layout), Protel, Zemax, VCS/Virsim, SPICE, Verilog, VHDL.

Selected completed designs:

• Quad OC-48 port card incorporating SFF transceivers, SERDES, SONET framer, control FPGA and support logic, analog optical power measurement, MEMS switch sense and control, analog and digital health and status monitoring circuits. Used as IO card for high-end telecom-grade switch.
• DC -- 500 MHz linear optical receiver module for laboratory use.
• Single channel OC-192 port card incorporating discrete laser, recevier, and mux/demux components. SONET framer, FPGA- and CPLD-based control logic, analog & digital health and status monitoring. Used as IO card for high-end telecom-grade switch.
• Several different OC-48 WDM laser test cards incorporating high-speed driver, operating current control, and wavelength locker servo circuits. Used as component and system test vehicles

Computer languages/environments: Python, Perl, TCL, Scheme, C, SQL, XML, MySQL, LabView, Scilab, Matlab, Fortran, Mathematica, Apache server and RedHat Linux administration, kernel compilation.

Selected computer programs developed:

• Searchable databse (MySQL) using Apache webserver with Python middleware and web browser front-end. (Apartment building architectural database for web.)
• Python/XML based system configurator utilized in optical cross-connect design.
• Spice-sdb: a scheme-based SPICE netlister backend for gschem -- part of gEDA, a GPLed, Linux-based electronics design pacakge.
• Garchive: a Python based project archiver for the gEDA project.
• Viewdraw netlist checkers using Perl (electronic design tool).
• SONET frame generator written in Perl.
• Perl-based optical fiber interconnect generators for an optical backplane. Used in optical cross-connect design.
• Various scientific computation and laboratory automation programs written in LabView, Matlab, Scilab, Mathematica, Pascal.

Professional History:

Electroniscript, inc. Boston and New York. March 2003 -- Present:

Consultant. Started Electroniscript, a personal consulting vehicle in projects requiring interdisciplinary technical skills including optics, systems, hardware, and software design experience. Specific projects include:

• Various software and business consulting projects for Inveratech Corporation (Billerica, MA), including:
  • Grant proposal preparation for DARPA and HSARPA. Grants proposals are typically 6 -- 20 page papers and include technical analysis, budgeting, and project planning (similar to business case analysis).
  • Simulation and optimization of microwave non-linear transmission line devices (NLTLs) using SPICE and Scilab (a GPLed Matlab clone).
  • Calculation of IR absorption properties of various airborne chemicals based upon parameters held in the HITRAN database. Calculations were both analytic and computer-based using Scilab.
• Development of SDH/SONET system verification test suite in TCL/Expect for Axiowave Networks (Marlborough, MA). Testing involved verifying the Axiowave system's compliance to requirements in T1.105, T1.231, GR-253-CORE, G.707, G.783, G.803, RFC 2558 (SONET MIB), and draft-ietf-atommib-opticalmib-01 (Optical MIB) amongst others. Special emphasis was placed upon verifying SDH compliance. I served as the SDH/SONET knowledgebase and provided guidance to software engineers involved with SONET support.
• Contributor to gEDA project. gEDA is a GPLed CAD environment for electronic design on Linux. Specific contributions include:
  • Advanced SPICE netlister to realize analog circuit design using Linux. The netlister was written in Scheme. Also wrote extensive HOWTO documenting use of the netlister.
  • Garchive: a Python based project archiver for the gEDA project.
  • Gschem <-> XML conversion utility. Written in Python.
  • Various enhancements, including GTK+ file opening and command line passing to Guile/Scheme backends.
• Upgraded SPICE parser for the tclspice/ngspice project to facilitate commercial-grade analog simulation under Linux. Code was written in C.
  • Modified original parser to enable use of complex netnames in SPICE netlists.
  • Fixed parser's hierarchy handling.
  • Fixed broken SPICE2 controlled-source POLY implementation in XSpice extension.
  • Integrated GNU readline into project.
  Part of this project involved revamping the project's GNU autoconf/automake config files.

Axiowave Networks, Marlborough, MA. June 2000 -- February 2003:

Consulting Engineer. Technical lead responsible for several aspects of the Axiowave product, including:

• Development of the early product architecture. Wrote initial product architecture documents detailing the functions and behavior of a large, carrier-class, multi-layer switch.
• Design of multi-port OC-48 PHY daughter card. The card served as the front end to an upper-layer switch, and was compliant to GR-253-CORE SR-1. Tasks performed:
  • Card architecture, including chipset determination.
  • Electronic design, including both analog and digital circuits.
  • Developed control and sense circuits for novel JDSU MEMS optical switch.
  • Schematic capture (Viewdraw).
  • SI assurance (XTK).
  • FPGA design (Xilinx XC2S150). Design was captured in Verilog.
  • Layout supervision (Allegro).
  • DVT.
  • Transition to manufacturing.
  I also provided guidance about SONET requirements to software engineers involved with the card's driver, including compliance with the SONET interface MIB (draft-ietf-atommib-sonet), and the optical layer MIB (draft-ietf-atommib-opticalmib). The card design was successful, and the card was used in the initial product release.
• Systems engineering for large-scale MEMS-based optical cross-connect (OXC). Researched, developed, and documented OXC specifications including:
  • Opto-mechanical design.
  • Optical performance (link budget, flutter, switch time, etc.).
  • Electrical control system architecture and performance.
  • Electronics performance (SNR).
  • Software functionality and behavior.
  The switch performance was governed by requirements culled from GR-253-CORE, GR-3009, and OIF-VSR4-05, amongst others. Through the specification, I coordinated the interaction of optical, hardware, and software engineers. I tracked the progress of various evolving standards relevant to OXCs including GMPLS. I also represented Axiowave at OIF and other industry body meetings.
• Created portfolio of system testing scripts in TCL/Expect. The scripts were used to test system configuration and connection setup/teardown as well as QoS performance per RFC-2544.

Nexabit Networks/Lucent Technologies, Marlborough, MA. June 1999 -- June 2000:

Lead Engineer. Technical lead in charge of developing a short-reach OC-192 (SR-2 per GR-1377-CORE) optical line card used in a carrier-class terabit router/switch. Engineering tasks included:

• Definition of card architecture. Created design requirements and documentation.
• Circuit design. Schematic capture (Viewdraw), SI assurance (XTK, SpecctraQuest), layout supervision (Allegro), DVT, transition to manufacturing.
• Sub-module specification and vendor management.

Tellabs Operations/IBM Research Optical Networking Group, Hawthorne, NY. Nov. 1995 -- June 1999:

Technical Staff Member. While at IBM Research, I was responsible for development of novel lasers optimized for WDM transmission systems.  After sale of group from IBM to Tellabs (Jan. 1997) I became involved in the following engineering activities:

• WDM transport system engineering (Tellabs 7100 WDM system):
  • Designed, constructed, and ran the WDM transmission testbed. The testbed was used to evaluate the system-level performance of the Tellabs WDM system. My activities included
    • I performed and analyzed WDM transmission experiments, including:
      • Measurement of power penalty due to coherent crosstalk
      • Characterization of laser chirp and its effect upon system Q using the swept decision threshold method.
      • Characterization of system power penalty due to optical impairments such as ASE noise from EDFAs, dispersion, incoherent crosstalk, receiver non-idealities, etc.
    • Constructed and documented analytic models describing the system performance and verified the measured performance against the analytic models.
    • Wrote technical notes documenting system test results.
    • Made system design recommendations based upon the system test results.
  • Component verification and test. I conducted physical, optical, and electrical measurements of various vendor parts to qualify them for use in the Tellabs system. Measurements included eye diagrams, S-parameters, optical spectra, optical loss and backreflection, etc.
• Individual contributor and team member working on architecture and design of OC-48 OEO card. This card provided an OC-48 SR-1 port into the WDM network. My activities included:
  • Contributed to card architecture, including chipset choice as well as ensuring compliance to SONET overhead processing per GR-253
  • Contributed to card design. Schematic capture using MentorGraphics "Design Architect". Wrote VHDL for several CPLDs and FPGAs providing glue logic between the on-boad microprocessor and various peripherials.
  • Assisted with card firmware bring-up. Debugged POR problem. Debugged DRAM problem. Helped firmware engineer get to stage where the card booted reliably.
• Involved (as an alpha customer) in development of an early Nortel DM laser with on-board wavelength locker. I designed a test card to support the on-board locker and simultaneously transmit 2.5 Gbps data. I performed various physical and system-level transmission experiments (e.g. wavelength stability, optical spectrum, eye diagrams, system Q). I communicated the results of my testing and shared the card design with scientists at Nortel.
• Designed and laid out OC-48 WDM test transmitter cards. Schematic capture and layout of cards performed using MicroSim Capture and Layout. Used in the WDM testbed for system verification and test.
• Specification writing for active and passive optical components including lasers, receivers, optical splitters, wavelength lockers, optical shutters, etc.

The system designed by my group eventually became the Tellabs 7100 Optical Transport System.

TeleDanmark Research, Horsholm, Denmark. April, 1994 -- Nov. 1995:

Senior Scientist, Optical Communications Department.

• Design, characterization, and utilization of monolithic CPM lasers for high-speed telecommunications systems.
• Conducted optical link performance measurements at 16 Gbps.
• Supervised students and technicians in the lab.

University Education:

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA. Combined Co-op SM/SB in Electrical Engineering.

Other:

Patents: "Upgradable modular wavelength division multiplexer", US Pat. no. 5,930,016.

Languages: English, German, some Danish.

References: Available upon determination of mutual interest.