Senior Design & Verification Engineer: FPGA, ASIC, SoC, Embedded, High-Speed

Jasmin Ibrahimovic -  jasmin@chili-chips.com - San Diego, California

• 20+ years in digital & embedded space, developing mission-critical & carrier-class electronic products
  

• Specialized in FPGA, ASIC, SoC, hardware-assisted computing and micro-architectures
  

• High-energy, detail-savvy, pragmatic problem solver with passion for excellence, one who'll take the challenge, embrace the change, keep the customer focus and roll-up the sleeves to make difference
  

• Independent in execution, issue clearing, progress reporting, customer, vendor & team interactions
  

• Open for consulting and full-time

Front-end developer with solid system & application perspective

      • ~ Feature, Feasibility, Performance, Trade-off Analysis

      • ~ System Partitioning & Architecture

      • ~ Interfaces & Handshakes

      • ~ Putting the system together (IP, *RAM, MCU, Peripherals, High-Speed I/O, DDR, SerDes)

      • ~ Modeling & Functional Simulation

      • ~ Scripting

      • ~ Constraints-driven Synthesis

      • ~ Timing Analysis & Closure

      • ~ Logic & Timing Design

      • ~ RTL Coding

      •~ Bring-up. HW/SW integration & debug. Lab hands-on

      • ~ Circuit & Schematic Design. Microcontrollers & Firmware. PCB-savvy

      • ~ Chip lead and liaison to third parties

Senior Consultant @ Chili.CHIPS

March 2009 – present, San Diego, California

+ FPGA design, verification, tool flow/implementation. Interface to system, electrical, PCB & FW teams
+ Xilinx Virtex5 (from LX220 to SXT50) with ISE11sp4. Altera CPLDs with Quartus II 9.1
+ VHDL and SystemVerilog-2009 with OVM2.1 on Mentor ModelSim 6.5d and Cadence Incisive 8.2
+ Applications include SBC/COTS, industrial/military PC, frame grabbing, PCIe, LPC/SERIRQ, USB, RAID, SRIO

Achievements:  Created custom SuperIO controller for the 32nm Intel i7 Calpella mobile Xpress platform in a rugged VME/VPX form-factor with X/PMC sites.

> Completed Intel MindShare training in PCI Express, including Gen2.0 additions

> Completed Altera training in Quartus II tool suite, C2H and PCIe on Arria2GX FPGAs

Principal Engineer @ AMCC

 July 2006 – March 2009, San Diego, California

+ ASIC/SoC lead. RTL design and verification. Liaison to IP vendors, FW, PnR, analog & DSP/Sys teams
+ TSMC 65nm, 90nm, 130nm nodes in COT flow
+ Synopsys DC-Ultra. PrimeTime SI. Build scripts, constraints, timing closure. SDC, TCL, Perl, CSH
+ SystemVerilog-2005 with AVM on Mentor QuestaSim. Synopsys VCS for gate-level. Mentor Precision RTL
+ Applications include DDR2/3 SDRAM controller+PHY, 8051 with AMBA APB3, MoCA, 4x10GbE PHY, MDIO

Achievements:  Architected standards-based, modular control plane for a 4-million gate ASIC. Devised transparent, hardware-accelerated 8-to-16 bit bridging which boosted firmware throughput so that a low-end, 8-bit micro sufficed. Automated CSR generation using Perl. Wrote APB transactors in SV and device drivers in Keil AX51 & C51.

Evaluated, procured and used IP for DDR2/3 SDRAM controller (soft) and PHY (hard). Worked with vendors and created SOW + I/F spec. Wrote DC synthesis and PTSI sign-off scripts in TCL/SDC. Guided the P&R towards timing closure. Worked with Product and Test Engineering to characterize the IP, which then integrated in the (AXI-based) SoC. 

Led prototyping of a cable modem (MoCA) in a Virtex4 LX200 FPGA with discrete OFDM RF stage on a separate board. Baseband processing included MAC with QAM2to256 data pump. Designed on-chip PowerPC 405 embedded subsystem with DMA-enabled packet buffering. PPC ran the MAC layer (soft, in firmware) and DSP coefficient management.

> Received performance-based awards  

Staff Engineer @ Copper Mountain Networks (now Motorola, Video Distribution Division)

October 2000 – June 2006, San Diego, California

+ FPGA/pSoC lead: Architecture, RTL design, verification. Methodology, scheduling/planning, mentoring
+ Xilinx Virtex2, Virtex2Pro, Spartan3, Virtex4 with 3.125GBaud SerDes and on-chip PowerPC405s
+ Verilog with OVA. ModelSim. Synplicity. EDK Platform Studio
+ Applications include dataplane fabric & post-processing for telco-grade IPTV delivery/access node platform

Achievements:  Architected as a library of parameterized & reusable modules, the Fabric spanned some 20 distinct FPGA designs distributed across a variety of SerDes-connected Switch, Processor and I/O cards. It contained complex controllers and state machines, in select cases even employing multiple on-chip PowerPC 405 subsystems. It reconciled the disparity of TCP/IP packets, ATM cells, TDM channels & MPEG transport streams. It glued, transformed, parsed headers, disassembled/converged/reassembled traffic threads, classified, priority-routed, flow-controlled, de-jittered, buffered in both on and off-chip RAM.

Interfaced to RF (QAM, AMVSB, QPSK), MTS, 6415 DSP (EMIF with DMA), xDSL, T1/E1, T3/E3, OC3/12/48, IMA, 10/100/1000 Ethernet, QDR SRAM, XAUI, SPI3, Intel IXP2800 CSIX, 1250 IXB/NP, APPI, SBI, POSPHY2, UTOPIA2.

Set-up functional simulation framework with clean, layered structure and comprehensive scope, which paid off in the rapid board bring-up and bug-free final product.

As the lead of a team of 3, defined & instituted FPGA development process for design correctness, re-use, manageability & portability. This resulted in significant time-to-market edge.

Through meticulous analysis of the functions to implement, achieved elegant simplicity and complexity without complication… which opened the gates for doing more in less silicon & so helped the bottom line.

> Received formal training in System Verilog

> Received 'Leader of the Pack Award' for leading by example

> Received 'Certificate of Achievement' for succeeding to accommodate a major last-minute feature change

Senior Engineer @ Nortel Networks (Optical Networks Division)

July 1997 – Sept. 2000, Ottawa, Canada

   + ASIC/FPGA RTL design and verification. Worked with FW, board and mixed-signal teams
+ 150nm (all-Cu) IBM ASIC flow with industry-first on-chip SerDes (also packaged as standalone hard IP macro)
+ Verilog and C. Actel
+ Applications include carrier-class SONET/SDH core-network node (OC192/768/1536, DWDM)

Achievements:  Designed TSI, Framer block and clock control scheme (over 70 domains) with all timing handoffs for an 11-million gate standard-cell ASIC.  Served as liaison to 2.5Gbps SerDes macro design team, which then integrated.

Designed FPGA-assisted, software-laden numeric Stratum-3 PLL card. Used an array of Actel FPGAs and Motorola PowerQUICC micro. Wrote all Verilog and some of the C device drivers.

> Received formal training in Verilog, Advanced Verilog, C, Perl, Synopsys VCS, DC, Prime Time, (formerly) Chrysalis Equivalence Checker, Nortel COT flow, Nortel DFT, RF I, RF II, Assertiveness, Negotiations 

Senior Engineer @ Gandalf Data Ltd. (now Mitel, Communications Infrastructure Division)

                                  Sept. 1993 – June 1997, Ottawa, Canada

+ FPGA/PLD and circuit/schematics design. Interfaced to system and FW teams
+ VHDL, AHDL, PALASM, Intel RISC. Lattice, Altera, Mentor, Viewlogic, OrCAD
+ Applications include edge network datacom/telecom (Terminal Server, Bridge, Router, ISDN PRI, POTS)

Achievements:  Developed communications products based on Intel i960CF/HX processor, Lattice (then Lucent) ORCA2C FPGAs, Altera FLEX8K FPGAs, Intel Flash EPLDs and Altera MAX7K CPLD.

> Received formal training in VHDL, Exemplar synthesis, ViewLogic and Mentor Design Architect schematics

Design Engineer @ Energoinvest/IRCA

May 1989 – March 1993, Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina

+ Logic & circuit design in Able & OrCAD
+ Intel 80188. Programming in C, ASM86 and PL/M-86
+ Applications include ISDN BRI, Industrial Control, AX.25 and UHF/VHF TV transmission

BSEE, Control Theory & Electronics

Sept. 1984 - May 1989, University of Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina 

+ Endorsed by US Department of Labor and University of Toronto, Canada. Graduated with Honors

Senior Design & Verification Engineer: FPGA, ASIC, SoC, Embedded, High-Speed