Thomas J. Harris

**** *. **** **. #***

Bloomington, MN 55438

add5ix@r.postjobfree.com

SUMMARY

Experienced electrical engineer with test and digital design engineering contributions to four successful implantable medical devices. Proven ability to innovate in large cross-functional groups and lead design and development efforts. Well-versed in the formal and informal testing of FDA and FCC-certified devices. Also experienced in prototyping efforts, requirements generation and problem analysis/resolution for complex electronic devices. Contributions designing and testing high-speed communication links for defense and commercial applications.

WORK EXPERIENCE

2016-present: Digital Design Engineer/New Wave Design and Verification: Added features to high-speed communication link state machines for military applications on Xilinx and Altera FPGA’s. Links included Ethernet, PCIe and Fibre Channel. Integrated a Xilinx-based verification IP for use on an AXI/Intel ASIC interface. Achieved 100% coverage. Doing UVM verification work on avionics FPGA’s using PCIe, 1394 and fibre channel interfaces.

2010-2016: Digital IC Engineer/Starkey Laboratories: Worked on the development of a mixed-mode ASIC platform for hearing aids. Designed and implemented I2C and SPI communication blocks utilizing I2C and SPI intellectual property. Lead an FPGA prototyping effort for the ASIC implementing a cycle-accurate digital model on a Xilinx FPGA prototyping board.

1996 – 2010: Principal Design Engineer, Boston Scientific: Worked on several product development teams including two implantable defibrillator ASIC platforms and a pressure-sensing platform. Designed digital logic in VHDL and Verilog for cardiac sensing, pressure sensing, inductive telemetry and RF telemetry. Also verified systems using FPGA models in Xilinx and Altera environments. Devices are ultra-low power with active digital currents < 10 uA.

* Resulting Prizm defibrillator yielded $30M/month in sales and three successful spin-offs including the first Guidant three-chamber defibrillator and the first defibrillator with RF telemetry.

* Resulting Cognis/Teligen defibrillator was the first BSC defibrillator with high-speed inductive telemetry and multi-session RF telemetry. Was the thinnest defibrillator in the industry. Lead to the recapture of several points in defibrillator market share.

1993 – 1996: Senior Design Engineer, Guidant: Designed and tested digital sensing and bradycardia control units for a single-chamber pacemaker/defibrillator ASIC. Performed DSP-based modeling of cardiac signals. Used VHDL in a Viewlogic environment. Performed extensive laboratory testing as well as acute studies in humans.

* Resulting product (VENTAK MINI) was the first single-battery defibrillator. Also the first to use protected RAM memory, digital sensing and HDL design techniques. These innovations led to an on-time product completion which recaptured market leadership in implantable defibrillators for Guidant/CPI. Resulted in $20M sales/month. Product was the platform for several successful spin-off products.

1989-1993: Test Engineer. Cardiac Pacemakers, designed electrical production tests for the ASIC in a single-chip, dual-chamber pacemaker. Tests were written in “C” for an in-house ASIC test system. Tests covered all analog and digital circuitry on the mixed mode chip. Also developed first production IDDQ test used by CPI during this project. IDDQ testing became standard at CPI after this project.

* The product tested (Vigor) was the core of CPI’s line of pacemakers for four years.

SKILLS USED

Verilog and VHDL RTL logic design; Synopsys synthesis; Cadence and Mentor Simulation, directed and UVM-based test benches; code coverage; FPGA prototyping and product design using Xilinx and Altera; static timing analysis, power analysis; wafer probing and IC failure analysis; programming in C; hardware C code emulation; scripting in Unix, Perl, Python; configuration management using SVN and git; Excel spreadsheets; Windows net meetings; Microsoft Word, Powerpoint, Project (project management, scheduling).

PATENTS

1. 7,668,596 Methods and apparatuses for implantable medical device

telemetry power management

2. 7,359,753 System and method for RF wake-up of implantable medical device

3. 7,319,903 System and method for RF transceiver duty cycling in an

implantable medical device

4. 6,381,494 Response to ambient noise in implantable pulse generator

5, 4,791,578 A method for evaluating the testability of circuit systems

containing a plurality of logic gates through evaluating statistical

properties in response to selected inputs

6. Pending: Telemetry During Safety Mode Operation

7. 8,639,350: Telemetry Double Buffering and Oversampling for an Impl. Medical Device

8. 8,041,431: System And Method For In Situ Trimming Of Oscillators In A Pair Of Implantable Medical Devices

9. Pending: Methods and Systems for Providing Multiple Access Within a Network

EDUCATION:

University of St. Thomas: MS-Software Engineering, Program taken while working full-time at Guidant/CPI. Masters Project was a CAD tool to perform power analysis of digital circuits (written in “C”on UNIX). Tool was successfully used to analyze digital power consumption for ASIC’s at Guidant/CPI.

University of Wisconsin-Madison, BSEE-Computer Engineering, Ingersoll Physics Award. Graduated with Honors and Distinction.

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