Version Info

Contact Info

Recruiters: Use email, DO NOT CALL
Home: 415.341.5555 (call between 11a-8p PST)
Email:

Work Experience

Verification Consultant, Bluechip Systems. May 2015 - Jan 2016.

• Verified secure communications between apps/device and an embedded SoC running a custom Linux on a custom CPU

Director of Verification, iCelero, LLC. Jul 2007 - Dec 2013.

• Managed verification for a complex, fully-custom processor under a very tight schedule
• Created complete toolchain and testbenches for entire CPU verification process, from block level to full-chip to SOC.
• Created highly sophisticated test packer/generator for VLIW CPU

Independent Consultant, DaveSource Consulting. Jul 2002 - Present.

Contractor for VLSI/Processor Verification and/or software design/implementation.

• CPU verification, formal verification tool design.
• Designed and implemented operations management algorithms. Order of magnitude improvement in runtime and savings.
• Custom image sorting software, custom web apps.

CPU Verification Engineer, Transmeta Corp. Jan 2000 - Jul 2002.

• Created cycle-accurate models (verilog, perl, scheme) of blocks
• Wrote pseudo-directed random test generators (verilog, scheme).
• Due to original formal verification techniques on blocks, all bugs were found pre-silicon.

CPU Verification Engineer, SandCraft Inc.. Jul 1998 - Jan 2000.

In charge of initial verification of the execute half of SR1/Montage CPU:

Designed modular verilog/PLI testbench for blocks/fullchip, verified blocks

Created majority of verification tool environment.

CPU Verification and Debug, VLSI Technology Lab, Hewlett-Packard. Aug 1994 - Jun 1998.

Post-silicon debug/tools:

Created the entire tool chain from scratch (except for some random code generators), including boot code and test framework, controller/environment scripts, shmoo scripts, fail search/eval, etc..

Hardware environmental testing and debug software

Finding and debugging failures

Pre-silicon verification:

Random code generators, test creation

Test checkers and evaluators

Tools writer

Other duties:

Lab Resource: Unix, programming, scripting..

Tool geek (wrote CAD tools, personnel tools, etc..)

Shareware Programmer, Marginal Hacks

I wrote many popular tools at Marginal Hacks, including the highly popular album software.

Publications

• CPU electrical verification, August 1997, HP Journal (as "David J. Ljung") [local copy]
• CPU Block verification using formal tools

Skills

Computer Languages

Fluent in C, Ruby, Perl, Java, Scheme, Verilog and many versions of Assembly. I often become the perl guru/resource wherever I work. I can do C++, but I'm not a fan.
Experience with: Lisp, Python, Basic, Fortran, sed, yacc, sh, ksh, zsh, csh, tcsh, etc..

Breaking things

I like to use things in new and interesting ways, this is one of the things that sets me out as a verification engineer. I have managed to break and find bugs in almost every tool I have used, such as:
gcc, cpp preprocessor, HPUX CC, HPUX linker, various assemblers, perl (2 so far), various shells (tcsh, ksh, ..), verilog simulators (VCS, ESP), rccs, etc..

Education

Degree: B.S. ECE/CS (Double major: Electrical Computer Engineering with Computer Option and Computer Science)

School: 1989-1994: University Of Wisconsin, Madison

Time's Person of the Year, 2006