Vote for the 2010 Test Engineer of the Year
Our editors selected the six finalists for this annual reward. To help choose the winner, cast your ballot by December 4.
-- Test & Measurement World, 11/1/2009 1:00:00 AM
Name an important product or technology, and you’ll find a test engineer whose hard work and talent ensures the quality and reliability so essential for success. To salute the engineers who play this critical role in the electronics arena, Test & Measurement World is holding the seventh annual Test Engineer of the Year competition.
In recent weeks, we’ve received numerous nominations of outstanding test engineers from a broad range of fields. Our editors have selected the individuals on these pages as the finalists for the 2010 Test Engineer of the Year award. This year’s slate of finalists have spearheaded critical tests in applications as varied as a revolutionary hybrid car, Mars rovers, laser-based measuring, and products for the fast-paced telecom and consumer-electronics markets.
Help us honor your profession. Review our profiles of the finalists to learn about their on-the-job skills and overall contributions to their fields. Then, cast your vote online by visiting www.tmworld.com/survey/78568, where you will find additional Web links to information on the candidates and their companies.
Test & Measurement World will announce the recipient of the 2010 Test Engineer of the Year award in April 2010. Our April cover story will describe the outstanding work of this engineer, who also will designate an engineering school to receive a $10,000 grant, courtesy of award sponsor National Instruments.
We must receive your vote by December 4, 2009.
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Go to the ballot and cast your vote.
2010 Test Engineer of the Year Finalists:
Jason Gates | Paul MacDonald | Dagmar Mayor Lisa Moder | Nathan Newbury | Lance Turner Go to the Awards Page for more information. |
AEROSPACE TEST
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Jason Gates
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
“If something goes wrong on Mars, you can’t send a service engineer to fix it.” That’s how electrical engineer Jason Gates summed up the importance of test at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he designed and tested avionics for rovers Spirit and Opportunity.
The twin Mars Exploration Rovers are now more than five years into missions originally scheduled to last three months. “We co-developed hardware and software, and nothing ever worked the first time,” recalled Gates. “So, we had to test and fix until we got it right.”
Gates led the integration and test work for the rover electronics module that interfaces with the spacecraft’s subsystems. Less than a year before launch, progress hit a snag when key functional test software wouldn’t load. Gates was off that day, a groomsman at his brother’s wedding. Still in tuxedo, he returned to the lab between ceremony and reception to fix the problem. On another occasion, he worked 36 straight hours to determine why hardware—inaccessible in a vacuum chamber at 55°C—wouldn’t boot up for another test.
Now, Gates is busy designing and testing the computer module and power analog module on NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory, scheduled to launch in 2011. With a complex array of instruments, the spacecraft’s electronics present even more daunting challenges than did earlier rovers.
Links to relevant sites about Jason Gates
SEMICONDUCTOR TEST
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In the highly competitive world of consumer electronics, grabbing a market share lead is a major victory, and AMD accomplished just that recently when its ATI Mobility Radeon GPUs (graphics processing units) recorded a 53% share in discrete graphics computer notebooks. The GPU family has chalked up more than 200 design wins worldwide.
Such achievements wouldn’t be possible without test engineers like Paul MacDonald, principal member of the technical staff at the company’s ATI graphics operation in Canada. MacDonald plays an integral role in the interface between design and test for AMD’s leading-edge GPUs, such as the ATI Radeon HD4000 series. One of his major accomplishments was ASIC profiling, which allowed the company to speed-bin ASICs at wafer sort, reducing back-end complexity and rework and also triggering substantial cost savings.
MacDonald’s upfront focus on test also dramatically reduced time to market, essential to the success of the Radeon HD4000. Now, he is devoting much of his time to developing known-good-die test strategies to further improve GPU manufacturability. Said MacDonald: “Production volumes are so high at AMD that we need to work very hard at test efficiencies.”
With an MSEE from Ottawa’s Carleton University and nearly 30 years of industry experience, MacDonald holds patents in circuit design and did design and test on high-speed telecom chips at Nortel before joining AMD in 2006.
Links to relevant sites about Paul MacDonald
WIRELINE TEST
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Verizon’s relentless advertising campaign for its FIOS service is paying off: In the second quarter, FIOS Internet and TV subscribers jumped by more than 60% over the same period in 2008. But such growth can’t be sustained without high-quality service.
That’s where test engineer Dagmar “DeeDee” Mayor enters the picture. As a Distinguished Member of the technical staff at Verizon’s Systems Integration & Testing Lab in Baltimore, Mayor performs essential tests on hardware and software for the FIOS platform before it goes out to the field.
Mayor develops automated test cases for an ever-changing stream of equipment and installation requirements. Such tests are performed in the lab on FIOS platforms specifically built to replicate the field environment. “The goal is to catch defects as early as possible,” said Mayor, an 11-year Verizon veteran who is also working on a master’s degree in telecommunications management.
An expert in fiber-to-the-premises technology, Mayor’s testing covers OLTs (optical line terminals), ONTs (optical network terminals), and battery backup equipment—as well as triple-play services themselves. Recently, she played a key role in the testing and verification of Verizon’s new slimmed-down ONTs for multifamily buildings. She identified 12 issues that required manufacturing correction prior to deployment in the field. Her team also maintains a database of defects, shared on a continuous basis with vendors.
Links to relevant sites about Dagmar Mayor
COMMUNICATIONS TEST
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Lisa Moder
EchoStar Technologies
Want to program your home TV from your iPhone? You can do it with EchoStar Technologies’ latest set-top box, the ViP 922, the first high-definition DVR (digital video recorder) that incorporates Sling Media’s Slingbox technology that enables such long-distance control.
The ViP 922 is the most recent—and most complex—of the 13 set-top designs that test engineer Lisa Moder has worked on in eight years with the company. Other important platforms include the first high-definition MPEG4 DVRs. Together, these designs are responsible for some 20 million set-top boxes fielded in the US—testimony to the high-volume stakes in the consumer-electronics market.
“My job is to find and implement quality, reliable, and robust automated test systems that take the subjectivity out of manufacturing test,” said Moder, whose career has also included test work on surgical lasers and pulse generators for the military.
On the ViP 922, Moder grappled with how to test the device’s new touch-pad controls. She also adopted VI Technology’s Multimedia Test System for the automated testing of the DVR’s audio and video functions. Among the benefits: Reduction in false passes and post analysis of failed units. That’s just one example of Moder’s unrelenting focus on innovative test strategies that trim field failures, boost test throughput, and add to company profits.
Links to relevant sites about Lisa Moder
OPTOELECTRONICS TEST
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Nathan Newbury
National Institute of Standards and Technology
A PhD physicist at NIST’s Optoelectronics division in Colorado, Nate Newbury serves as project leader in developing a laser-ranging system that can pinpoint multiple objects with nano-meter precision over distances up to 100 km.
This innovative LIDAR (light detecting and ranging) system uses as its building blocks optical frequency combs—high-precision tools for measuring different frequencies of visible light. Newbury pioneered development of the first fully phase-locked fiber laser frequency combs, which are potentially smaller and more portable than typical combs that generate laser light from crystals. NIST’s LIDAR design combines the best of two different approaches to absolute measurement: the time-of-flight method, with its large ambiguity range, and ultraprecise interferometry.
While the LIDAR system is still in development, Newbury said NIST could potentially license the technology for applications ranging from micron-level measurement of parts on manufacturing lines to maintaining networks of satellites in perfect formation, creating a space-based platform to search new planets. “We have a lot of work to do in exploring the potential of this technology to create very precise distance measurements rapidly,” he added.
The NIST LIDAR can update measurements to multiple targets every 200 µs. It also has a comfortably large ambiguity range of at least 1.5 m, enough to check the coarse distance with widely available technologies such as GPS.
Links to relevant sites about Nathan Newbury
POWER/AUTOMOTIVE TEST
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Scheduled to debut late next year, the plug-in Chevy Volt hybrid is the car GM says will lead it into its second century of business. It’s a high-pressure, high-stakes project, but Lance Turner, who leads battery-development testing on the car’s VOLTEC electric-propulsion system, “has blinders on.”
The electrical engineer is fully occupied with testing new design iterations of VOLTEC and its lithium-ion chemistry. “We’re faced with validating a very big battery pack in a very short time frame,” said Turner, whose work includes demonstrating the system to everyone from corporate executives to college engineering students.
The gauntlet of tests range from vibration and barrier-crash tests to 24/7 charge-discharge cycling and environmental tests at extreme temperatures. An electrical engineer, Turner has developed custom visualization software to demonstrate the effect of battery-cell balancers.
He also has served as the GM liaison engineer with Compact Power, a leading battery supplier, to integrate the VOLTEC system into prototype test vehicles. The biggest challenge: Determining life cycle on a cutting-edge system.
Turner’s experience includes years of development on advanced batteries, fuel cells, and electrical propulsion, including design and test on EV1, GM’s pioneer electrical vehicle. Said Turner: “If you’re into batteries, it’s a very exciting time.”
Links to relevant sites about Lance Turner
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Go to the ballot and cast your vote.
2010 Test Engineer of the Year Finalists:
Jason Gates | Paul MacDonald | Dagmar Mayor Lisa Moder | Nathan Newbury | Lance Turner Go to the Awards Page for more information. |
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I vote for Lance Turner
Harvey W Edson - 2009-13-11 11:28:38 EST
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