Tim's Home Page at Open Circuit Design


Table of Contents

Preface
Where I Work
Other links of interest
Webcam
3D Printing
Random fun
Dissertation:
Past Research
Profile
Programs
Pictures
Music
My Extended Family

Preface

My home page contains a variety of stuff, the vast majority of it authored by me, including: computer programs, 3D printing projects, oil paintings, music compositions, research in Analog VLSI at Stanford and Johns Hopkins University, projects in VLSI systems and MEMS at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, and EDA tool development at MultiGiG, Inc.
The major points of interest are my open-source EDA tools, started to facilitate my research, and which have ballooned into major projects themselves: especially the circuit drawing and schematic capture program xcircuit, of which I am author, developer, and maintainer, magic, of which I am currently the principal developer and maintainer of the development versions, and qflow, the open-source digital synthesis flow for integrated circuit fabrication.

Of possible interest are my research papers and projects on Analog VLSI circuits and technology, and other, more modest software projects.

The most important topics can be reached by the button links on the left of my home page. Many of these pages can be reached from the links on this welcome page, as well.

Where I work


eFabless
After finishing graduate school in 1999, I went to work for the space department at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, a staff position that I held until 2004. In 2002, I began working part-time for a startup-company in England called MultiGiG, Ltd. In 2004, I began working for them full-time, and moved out to California to be with the company when they moved their headquarters to Scotts Valley. In 2008, I moved back to Maryland, but continued to work for MultiGiG remotely until the company was bought by Analog Devices in 2012. I continued to work remotely for Analog Devices until June 2016, splitting my time between the groups in Greensboro, North Carolina, and San Jose, California. In June, 2016, I returned to the startup world to work for eFabless.

A short video clip of a demonstration program being run on my Raven microprocessor, a RISC-V processor designed using all open source tools on efabless.com (February 5, 2019). This small processor was designed for embedded mixed-signal applications and has a 100MHz internal clock.


Other links of interest

EEWeb interview featuring a picture of my basement office facing the webcam, instead of the other way around. Thanks to EEWeb and Jessica Shoemaker for this rare bit of public exposure!

May 7, 2006 EE Times Article about MultiGiG (my former employer) and Rotary Traveling Wave Oscillator technology.

Digi-Key page for the first MultiGiG chip that can be purchased through Digi-Key. The chip is sold under the Micrel name as part number SM802110, and is a 153.6 MHz frequency synthesizer with LVPECL output, in a 24-pin QFN package.


Webcam

webcam

The webcam is back up after a nine-month hiatus! Last image taken at my basement office at home in Poolesville, Maryland. View is updated once every two minutes. The camera is mounted on my lab bench computer monitor, facing the back of the room, for now.


3D Printing


MakerGear M2 custom twin extruder! (December 7, 2015)

My favorite hobby since January of 2013 is my 3D printer, a MakerGear M2 model that I constantly tinker with and modify. Follow the link to some pages about my printer modding projects.

In addition to tinkering with the printer, I also do a lot of 3D design work, which I usually post to my account on Thingiverse.

Often, I can be found expounding my opinions about 3D printing and the MakerGear M2 on the MakerGear forum.


Random fun


Potato Cannon! (May 10, 2015)

Dissertation


My Ph.D. Dissertation:
Time-Frequency Acoustic Processing and Recognition: Analysis and Analog VLSI Implementations (Johns Hopkins University department of Electrical Engineering, 1999).

Past Research


Past Research:
Summary of (long) past research and projects, mostly on Analog VLSI topics related to speech and sound processing. Mostly from graduate school (between 1991 and 1999) and work at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics (between 1999 and 2003).

Profile


My personal profile:
All about me.

Programs


Programs:
All open-source, mostly EDA tools, mostly UNIX/X11-based, mostly C code. The main software tools I develop can be found at the links on the left. This link goes to a more complete list of software, much of it having lost usefulness over time.

Pictures


Pictures:
Paintings, drawings, photographs, and a few PostScript figures.

Music


Music:
Musical compositions. Mostly from college days (1987 to 1992).

My Extended Family


My sister Rebecca is a history professor at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York. Becca is the author of several books including Angels in the Machinery: Gender in American Party Politics from the Civil War to the Progressive Era (Oxford University Press, 1997), authored the web page 1896, and has co-authored a set of high school AP American history textbooks.

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Last updated: February 5, 2019 at 4:24pm