Resumé
Joseph Palmer
San Jose, CA
jpalmer@josephpalmer.com
Objective (Depreciated due to retirement)
I seek the position of Maker within a small, focused team
where I can expand my experience and contribute to electrical,
mechanical and industrial design of a world class, world recognized product.
Work Skills
- Expert level electrical design and schematic capture. (Pads Logic, and OrCAD)
Over 30 years of circuit design experience, from TTL to ECL to
modern, low voltage CMOS designs. I specialize in designs that
require analog circuits to co-exist in a system with digital
circuitry.
- Expert level hand route circuit layout of PCBs using PADS PCB.
Proven design experience in double-sided BGA, blind and buried
vias, and flex circuit design. I specialize in designs that have
extensive interaction with the mechanical cabinet, and in designs
requiring isolation of noise by layout design.
- Expert level prototyping and debugging (electrical and mechanical).
Over 30 years of experience building electrical and mechanical
prototypes, including the use of machine tools (lathes and mills).
- Expert level mechanical brainstorming.
Over 30 years of experience working with mechanical designers
to develop mechanical strategies for product development.
- Expert level mechanical CAD for PCB design.
15 years experience using 2D CAD tools for integration of PCBs into
products.
10 years experience using AutoCAD LT.
Some experience with 3D design tools (Pro-E).
Patents Granted
Danger Research
- D484,503 - Adjustable Data Processing Device
- 7,091,957 - Directional Pad Having Integrated Acoustic System and Lighting System
- 7,107,084 - Sliding Display Apparatus
- 7,187,364 - Data Processing Device Having Multiple Adjustable Display and Keyboard Orientations
- 7,224,373 - Adjustable Data Processing Display
- 7,280,346 - Adjustable Display for a Data Processing Apparatus
Nest Labs
- 8,511,576 - Power Management in Energy Buffered Building Control Unit
- 8,627,127 - Power-Preserving Communications Architecture with Long-Polling Persistent Cloud Channel for Wireless Network-Connected Thermostat
- 8,708,242 - Thermostat System with Software-Repurposable Wiring Terminals Adaptable for HVAC Systems of different Ranges of Complexity
- 8,788,103 - Power Management in Energy Buffered Building Control Unit
Work History
Retirement Attempt 3 (Third Time's the Charm)
04/12 - Present
Projects
- Add French doors between the kitchen and living room.
- Removal of wood burning firebox and flue.
- Re-frame and Rebuild fireplace wall.
- Install drywall and texture.
- Install Gas Firebox insert.
- Install Gas hardline.
- Hand cut stone veneer from flagstone, and install.
- Design and install hearth base and stones.
- Design and fabricate mantle, and install.
- Install crown molding.
- Install under-floor heating in bathroom.
- Install new tile in bathroom.
- Install Undercabinet LED lights on Sink side of kitchen.
Black Pearl Systems/ Lyve Minds
Hardware Shipwright
12/12 - 02/14
- Design and Fabrication of USB switching and hard drive Power circuits for integration of Hard Drive into Android Devices.
- Integration of HHD into Samsung 10" Tablet.
- Integration of HHD into Samsung 5" Fablet backpack.
- Integration of HDD & power system into iPad Keyboard.
- Design and construction of of prototype enclosures for portable HDD with LCD.
- Development support of LyveHome device.
Retirement Attempt 2 (Failed)
7/12 - 12/12
Projects
- Repaint Front bedrooms.
- Install crown molding in front bedrooms.
- Install recessed lighting in 3 bedrooms.
Nest Labs
Senior Hardware Engineer
12/10 - 07/12
- Design and assembly of beta prototype enclosures of First Generation Nest Thermostat.
- Design assembly and debug of support PCBs and flex cables for non enclosure device prototypes.
- Design of thermostat self-heat compensation PCBs and flex circuits.
- Design of system Flex cable for Nest Thermostat.
- Design and fabrication of retail point of sale display cabling.
- Design of PCB frames for 2nd Generation Thermostat.
- Design and development of thermal Test Houses with heat and cooling forcing.
- Design of programmable test house controller and humidity control insert for humidity forcing.
- Design of beta prototype enclosures of Second Generation Nest Thermostat.
Retirement Attempt 1 (Failed)
10/09 - 12/10
Projects
- Install Network wiring in crawlspace.
- Install catwalk in attic.
- Install additional layer of R60 insulation in attic.
- Replace kitchen tile countertops with Corian.
- Install tile backsplash in kitchen.
- Install faucet and disposal in kitchen.
Dell, Inc
08/07 - 10/09
Zing Systems was acquired by Dell
- Electrical and PCB design, and mechanical consulting, for 2 media players (unreleased by Dell).
- Design reviews and evaluations of Dell Mini 10 netbooks and Digital TV receivers.
- Design reviews and evaluations of other unannounced Dell products.
Zermatt Systems / Zing Systems Inc.
Inventor
10/05 - 08/07
- Development work on the Sirius Stiletto models 10 & 100. Worked with ODM on design changes to improve satellite reception, improved charging system.
- Electrical and PCB design of the Showtime WIFI media player on a 6 week start schematic to on-stage demo for the D4 conference (Zermatt was rebranded Zing at D4). The player was picked up by Sandisk and released as the Sansa Connect (2007 CES - awarded "Best of Show")
- Electrical, PCB design, and mechanical consulting on the Sirius Stiletto 2 satellite receiver (smaller form factor, PCB integration, new power supply and RF sections).
Danger, Inc
Director of Hardware Engineering
08/00 - 07/05
- Developed the Danger Hiptop (a cell phone/PDA sold in the USA as
the T-Mobile Sidekick) with a small team including ID, mechanical and
mechanism designers.
- Invented the signature 180 degree rotating hinge used in the Sidekick.
- Brainstormed with ID and mechanical to develop product layouts and detailed part designs.
- Developed mechanical solutions for prototypes.
- Circuit design of all prototype and final Sidekick and Sidekick 2 models.
- Developed multilayer PCBs and flex circuits for each revision of the Sidekick product line.
- Created 2D drawings for PCB from 3D Pro-E design. Cross-checked cabinet mechanicals against PCB using AutoCAD.
- Developed Danger internal web resources: catalogs of components and directories of PCBs and revisions.
- Awards: 2003 Wired Rave Award for Industrial Designer - co-recipient
- Patent D484,503: Adjustable Data Processing Device - co-inventor
- Patent 7,091,957: Directional pad having integrated acoustic system and lighting system - co-inventor
- Patent 7,107,084: Sliding display apparatus - co-inventor
- Patent 7,187,364: Data processing device having multiple adjustable display and keyboard - co-inventor
- Patent 7,224,373: Adjustable data processing display - co-inventor
Video Storage Systems
Founder
01/97 - 08/00
- Research and development on a wide array of hard disks for uncompressed video capture and manipulation.
- Mechanical design of system chassis.
- Electrical and PCB design of 16 channel DMA/Buffer system.
- Electrical design of chassis interconnect system.
- Market research for video editing hardware.
- Business plan development.
Be, Inc
Director of Hardware Engineering
04/94 - 01/97
- Development of the BeBox computer: a dual processor PowerPC 603
computer system with PCI, ISA, 16 bit audio, two MIDI ports, three IR
ports and the GeekPort™.
- Completed circuit design, PCB design, and mechanical design using a single outside mechanical designer and a single ID resource.
- Created web documentation and graphics.
- Demonstrated system at MacWorld Expos in San Francisco and Tokyo.
Apple Computer, Inc
Electrical Engineer
02/91 - 04/94
- Responsible for system schematics and CAD component placement for the Macintosh 660AV.
- Specification of design for the ATCS (Apple Telecom Clock
Synchronizer) ASIC. This chip detected the insertion of the GeoPort
Pod, and seamlessly switched the audio system clock on the DSP to match
the external telecom crystal so that modem and audio functionality
could be handled simultaneously.
- Design and development of a DMA system prototype. This PCB enabled
the development and test of driver software in parallel with the IO
ASIC development; and provided a test environment for the new floppy,
Ethernet, Serial and SCSI ICs.
- Construction of demo prototype cases.
- Development of netlist software for node-order rules input to PCB CAD.
- Development of waveform font for engineering development and documentation.
- Development of S-Video to composite converter for 660AV video input.
- Development of CMOS to ECL converter for 660AV graphics system clock.
3Com Corporation
Electrical Engineer
01/86 - 02/91
- Development of RingTap™ Token Ring wiring system.
- Electrical circuit design
- PCB design
- Mechanical design
- Instructional materials and graphics
- Development of LanScanner™ test instrument, which measured the length and impedance of installed wiring.
- Electrical circuit design
- PCB design
- Mechanical design
- Measurement algorithm development
- CAD designer of IE3 (3Com's flagship LAN card).
- CAD designer of 5.1 Transceiver.
- Development of multi-channel test head for twisted pair bundle characterization.
Noetics / Chronon
Electrical Engineer
05/82 - 11/85
- Mechanical and electrical development of RISC super-mini computer.
- Development of liquid immersion cooling test prototype.
- Development of in-house CAD software for buried resistor multiwire cards.
- Development of floating-point unit schematics.
- Development of PAL/GAL based CPU and cache functional prototype for software development.
- Development of Multibus-VME remote shared memory interface (a memory region and mailbox flag system was shared between a
Multibus-based SUN workstation and the prototype CPU system).
- Development of 68K Multibus CPU card (Stanford University Network clone).
- Development of Multibus Cards for high resolution graphics monitors.
- Multibus Card development for scanner interface.
3Com Corporation
Sr. Technician
01/81 - 05/82
- Development and construction of the "Packet Generator", an Ethernet test signal generator.
- Development and construction of a multi-channel power distribution box for transceiver burn-in.
- Development and construction of a drop cable test box to test cable assemblies for proper assembly of twisted pairs.
- Development and construction of a high voltage leakage tester for isolation testing of the 3C100 Transceiver.
- Development of a cable tap PCB which improved the assembly reliability of the 3C100 Transceiver.
- Development of an N-Connector PCB which simplified the assembly of the 3C100.
- Debugging support for Qbus, Unibus, Multibus and 3Com's first ISA Ethernet card.
Spectral Dynamics Corporation
Sr. Technician
09/78 - 01/81
- Design and debug of Z80 control CPU cards (first use of dynamic memory at Spectral Dynamics).
- Development and construction of FFT input test box.
- Development and construction of inter-chassis IO bus control monitor.
- Development of system test software (Basic on Tektronics vector memory display computer).
- Development of netlist sort software (APL on IBM 5100).
Henri's Music
Instrument Technician
06/77 - 07/78
- Mechanical repair and upgrades of guitars, band and orchestra instruments,
electronic keyboards, Amps, and mixers.
Detailed contact information and references available on request
Revision 2015.12.19