DR. STEVEN L. MORRA, DE, PE
MULTI-DISCIPLINARY ENGINEER
KEYWORDS:
System, Electrical, Microelectronic, Hybrid, Semiconductor,
Mechanical, Packaging, Computer, Telecom, DWDM, 10GB/s, 40 Gb/s, SONET, FEC, Research, Design,
Manufacturing, Test, Quality, Materials, Components, Hybrids, Processes, Sensors, Equipment,
Opto-electronics, Electronics, Photonics, Microwave, Thermal, CAD, Business, Economics, Management,
Organization, Costing, Estimating, Documentation, Training, Ideas, Invention,
Research, Taxonomy
FORMAL EDUCATION:
DE,
Southern Methodist University, Dallas Texas. Doctor of Engineering in Electrical Engineering.
Multi-disciplinary major fields in electrical engineering and computer science. Studies in mechanical engineering, composite
materials, statistics, operations research, management, accounting, finance, economics, and marketing. Praxis titled
"A 75 Ohm Switching Instrument for Automated Performance Measurement of Digital Telecommunication Equipment".
MSE,
Southern Methodist University, Dallas Texas. Major fields in electrical engineering and computer science.
BSE,
Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland Ohio.
Double major in electrical engineering and systems & control engineering.
CERTIFICATIONS:
Registered Professional Engineer since 1987, Texas license 62530. Detailed engineering resume with references on file with state of Texas
for professional engineering license.
Formal training on HP8510C Network Analyzer, HP82000 Digital Test System, HP-UNIX System Administration, Reliability Engineering,
and HP FTM-300, SAS, LabVIEW, Capture, PowerPCB, and SolidWorks softwares.
Attended OFC97, 99, 01-05, SuperComm2000.
US patent 4,759,771 and foreign patent issued on “Packaging Technique For Batteries” (1988).
Disclosure for "Stimulated Brillouin Scattering Suppression in Optical Fiber
by Cavity Length Modulation of an External Cavity Tunable Laser" (1999).
OVERVIEW OF EXPERIENCED CAPABILITIES:
GENERAL:
Broad engineering education and experience with electronic product specification,
design, development, component selection, manufacturing materials and processes,
equipment selection, quality assurance, test systems, and facility design
PRODUCT AND TEST DEVELOPMENT:
PLANNING: product requirements
definition, estimation, contingencies, risk management, technical and business
proposals with costing, architecture, technology, equipment selection, supplier
development.
SYSTEM: Definition, partitions,
design, grounding, shielding, integration, automation, evaluation, metrology.
ELECTRICAL and ELECTRONIC:
Analog:
audio, RF, microwave, optical, and magnetic; low to high level and power;
DC to ~50 GHz.
Digital:
logic, memory, microprocessor, and ASIC.
Power: linear and
switching; supplies and drivers.
Wiring:
Electrical and optical wire, cables, and connectors. Microstrip,
stripline, coplanar, coax, and advanced transmission line structures. PC boards,
flex circuits, thin and thick film ceramic substrates.
MECHANICAL and PACKAGING: Definition
and tradeoffs of architecture, performance, manufacturability, technologies, and
costs.
Integrated Circuits:
plastic lead-frame, hermetic ceramic, chip-on-board, BGA, advanced designs,
patent issued.
Assemblies:
hermetic and non-hermetic hybrids, sensors, PC boards, instruments, and systems.
Mechanical design: plastic injection molds, sheet metal, machined
parts, fasteners, hardware, machines, fixtures, thermal, pneumatics, materials,
fab processes, finishes.
TEST:
Test plan and requirements definition, cost estimation and capital
planning, test system design, advanced
fixture and contactor design, test algorithm and software definition, equipment
selection/evaluation, product testability, advanced test equipment origination.
TOOLS
and
METHODS:
SOFTWARE
TOOLS: Computer literate. MS-DOS,
Windows 3.1/95/98/NT/XP, HP-UNIX System Administrator;
SAS, LabVIEW, Visual Basic and several other Basic languages, some C and
C++; SPICE, SLAM, Touchstone
simulators; OrCAD Capture schematic
capture, PADS PowerPCB p.c. board layout, SolidWorks 3D solid modeling, AutoCAD
and clones, Altera Max+ Plus II; Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Visual Basic, Project,
Access; WordPerfect;
Adobe Photoshop and Premier and Illustrator; Netscape;
many others.
EQUIPMENT: HP82000 digital tester, HP 8510/8753/8702 and Wiltron network
analyzers, Calibration Kits, Optical and Fiber Optic Equipment, Anritsu and
Agilent Pattern Generators and Error Detectors with Jitter, Ordinary Bench
Equipment, Wire Bonding, Die Mount, Dicing Saws, Pick and Place, Screen
Printing, MSDOS and UNIX computers.
OTHER: Process development, equipment capitalization, facility
design. Corporate policy and
procedures composition. UL
listings/CSA certifications. Web
technical authoring at inter, intra, and sub-intra net levels.
Multi-disciplinary, able to technically translate, compose, and obtain
agreements between customers, managers, engineers, workers, suppliers, and
customers. High quality problem
solving and decision making. Entrepreneur.
STYLE: Pro-active, real team-oriented, technical team leader, individual
contributor, champion, agent of change, co-operative, communicative, friendly,
accountable, thorough, inventive, analytical, eclectic, intuitive, continuing
education, self education, ethical, kind, high quality, reliable, prefer
unprecedented and relatively risky assignments.
EMPLOYMENT
HISTORY:
ALCATEL USA, INC.,
Plano Texas.
Principal Engineer, “Ad Hoc” team leader, Test System Design Engineer, Division Test Strategist, New Design Quality Assurance
Engineer, ASIC Test System Integration Engineer, Environmental Stress Screening Development Engineer, Product Safety Engineer
(UL, ETL, CSA).
Lead engineer to define, cost, plan design, implement, and evaluate multi-million dollar production automatic functional
test systems on 15 occasions. Systems include $0.5M-1.5M test consoles with commercial and custom equipment, $20K-50K
functional test fixtures, test programs, multiple microwave and optical calibrations, and documentation. These systems
"at-speed" performance test bare laser diode semiconductor devices, hermetic opto-electronic and microwave hybrids,
surface mount technology printed circuit board assemblies, and card-cage style systems. Indirectly manage, lead, review,
and train dozens of engineers, technicians, and support personnel in several functional groups. Several test hardware
techniques have been incorporated in product designs. Directly influence product designs and supplier negotiations for
leading edge, high end optical and microwave devices. Such items include C and L band tunable lasers, lithium niobate
and EA modulators, clock and data drivers, optical receivers, clock-data recovery, wideband amplifiers, FEC encoders and
decoders, etc. for 10 GB/s and 40 GB/s RZ and NRZ systems. Department “real work” trainer, librarian, and component
engineer for schematic capture, PC board layout, mechanical design, office CAD tools, and engineering documentation and release
systems. Major participant in personnel evaluation, hiring, counseling, and career planning.
Won several "Quality Cups".
Evaluated and selected wide variety and large number of test instruments and computers and
their options, developed and audited equipment and component suppliers, designed
and implemented manual and automatic simple and very complex test fixtures, and
defined software, algorithms, test, and calibration plans. Prime negotiator and troubleshooter between product
development and operations in test distribution between device, in-circuit,
functional, system, burn-in, and customer levels.
Designs expressed using CAD tools for mechanical design, schematic
capture, p.c. board layout, data analysis, and documentation.
Support startup production with failure analysis skills.
Effected critical product design changes and 40 GB/s technology
development. Worked on non-ITU-grid
optical fiber chromatic dispersion simulator.
Originated UDWDM 10 GB/s optical transmitter system using tunable laser
with stimulated Brillouin scattering suppressor and WDM ID Tone modulator.
Strongly influenced creation of the New Focus, Telecordia compliant,
C-band, “PowerTune” (Picasso), tunable laser network element component
entering the market in FY2001.
Originated,
created, developed and deployed a strategic, low cost, functional test fixturing
system suitable for both product development and production uses.
System named “Mr. Horizon”, cost ~10% of any commercial system,
obsolescence controlled, ~200 systems built to date, ~100 systems used in
production to date, highly flexible, modular, expandable.
System provides ground isolated DC power, power monitoring, analog I/O,
and digital I/O resources to operate any telecom device or product.
Also used to rapidly create custom test equipment (next topic).
Performed
all architectural, mechanical, electrical, component, software definition,
procurement, and documentation engineering tasks required to originate, design,
procure, produce, and deploy quantity 12 of each of three critical GPIB-controlled,
rackmount, Mr. Horizon based, test instrument designs for DWDM production test
systems. Instruments named
“10GB/s RZ-NRZ Lithium Niobate Modulator”, “STS192-10.664 GB/s FEC
Transceiver”, and “Phased Optical Receiver, 9.95328 or 10.664 GB/s”. Equipment conservatively valued at $7.9M, cost $1.3M, not
available in the market, all 3 executed from conception to first article
completion in 6 months, part time.
Originated,
promoted, and negotiated the Alcatel “Priority List for Test Equipment
Suppliers” to top multinational marketing, business, and principal engineers
at Agilent, Anritsu, Tektronix, JDS, etc. List
defines 17 high value projects in technical and business terms, including UDWDM
optical transmitter and receiver product lines, 40 GB/s equipment, optical and
microwave switches, network analyzers, OSAs, lasers, etc. Purpose is to influence their future standard products to be
the capital equipment that is actually needed for DWDM telecom product testing.
Originated,
pioneered, and leader of highly successful “Ad Hoc” 5 man teamwork
organization using one third normal project manning.
Team identified, created, deployed, documented, and proved all 10 Gbit/sec
SONET automatic production functional test systems (14 hybrids, 7
sub-assemblies, 3 modules) on time for market and in parallel with product
development while closely following a large number of design iterations.
Team discovered and documented major present and future cost saving,
productivity gain, and spin-off techniques that have been duplicated within
Alcatel, valued between $5M and $100M. Team
also successfully critiqued and adapted concurrent engineering theory into “Ad
Hoc” teamwork, overhauled basic department processes, engineered LabVIEW test
software for production use, invented solutions to low voltage electrostatic
discharge problems, and invented methods for fast (few minutes), low cost,
product temperature testing capability.
Testability member on design review team for manufacturability on new and advanced telecommunications programs using high speed,
fully automated Surface Mount Technology processes. Principle test engineer on transport and cross-connect products
handling DS1, DS1C, DS2, DS3, SONET, WDM, DWDM, fiber optic, microwave, and digital RF signals up to 10 Gbit/sec and 50 GHz
using Optical Hybrids and CMOS, BiCMOS, ECL, and GaAs gate arrays.
Division test strategist, changed division production test practice from the use of "burn-in" to the use of
environmental stress screening (ESS) along with temperature testing. Defined, designed, capitalized, and implemented the
first production ESS facility. Defined, designed, capitalized, and implemented first digital ASIC Test Lab facility based
upon the Hewlett Packard 82000 UNIX based tester. Defined and designed a "Fitness-For-Use" system level product
characterization test system including custom test instruments for switching and conditioning large banks of DS1 and DS3 signals.
Defined non-hermetic multi-chip module designs, test strategies, and production test systems.
UNITED TECHNOLOGIES, MOSTEK DIVISION,
Carrollton Texas.
Semiconductor Package Development Engineer.
Designed, tooled, and qualified plastic leadframe, hermetic ceramic, and advanced packages (wafer scale integration, chip-on-board
memory, multi-chip modules, SIP memory, and battery backed memory) for DRAM and SRAM semiconductor memory products. Very
familiar with wire bond, die mount, wafer saw, pick & place, transfer molding, trim & form, and lid seal processes,
materials, and equipment. US patent 4,759,771 and Japanese patent issued on "Packaging Technique for Batteries"
in 1988 (battery packaging technology).
TRW, OPTO-ELECTRONICS DIVISION
Manager of Hybrid Product Development, Opto-Assembly Product Engineer.
Originated profit center (~$12M/yr in 1990) and created packaging technology for non-hermetic, opto-hybrid, chip-on-board and
multi-chip module products. Designed and developed assembly processes, selected materials, and selected process equipment.
Developed first customers (Litton, IBM, Xerox) and products, designed and built production test systems, and developed the
CAD design and tooling system. Co-designed differential optical bipolar integrated circuit sensor. Managed two
technicians and one engineer.
Designed, tooled, and initiated production of many precision opto-electronic sensor assemblies using p.c. boards, plastic
injection molded housings, and cable assemblies. Designed automotive Hall effect under hood ignition sensor, shaft
encoders, opto-couplers, fiber optic transceivers, reflective and transmissive opto-interrupters.
TEXAS INSTRUMENTS, LINEAR INTEGRATED CIRCUIT DIVISION
, Dallas Texas.
Integrated
Circuit Product Engineer. Maintained the manufacturing yield and initiated new products for all bipolar op amps.
Responsible for 27 million good chips per month. Managed two technicians.
HICKOK ELECTRICAL INSTRUMENTS, INC.
Project Engineer, designed off-line switching power supplies, oscilloscopes, 6800 Computer system.
VITEC INC.
Product Design Engineer, designed accelerometers, velocity sensors, and monitor instruments.
MIDWEST SOUND EXCHANGE INC.
System Design Engineer, designed large scale sound reinforcement systems.
CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY
Chemical Engineering Department, Electronics Specialist, designed custom test instruments, laser Doppler flowmeter, specialized
optical sensors.
ENTREPRENEURIAL HISTORY
·
MIDWEST SOUND EXCHANGE INC. Cleveland Ohio.
Ex-minority stockholder, corporate secretary, system design engineer, architect, inventor of large-scale, portable, all horn,
sound reinforcement systems. Systems leased, rented, and sold for audiences up to 250,000 people and
tours of major music artists. $100K system ROI in 6 months.
·
SCIENTIFIC TEST, INC. Garland Texas.
Created original product line of $15,000 semiconductor device testers for high power/voltage/current semiconductor devices.
Engineered and documented all mechanical designs, electronic designs, and embedded controller software requirements.
·
ASSET MANUFACTURING, INC. Wylie Texas.
Created, prototyped, and documented original product line of automotive products including ~$5 engine fan thermostats and ~$10
cabin temperature controls. Created electronic designs using pressure sensors for freon recovery system.
·
ANALOG DEVICES Wilmington Massachusetts.
Provided strategic, conceptual, and technical designs for ~$1M 1, 2, and 3-axis accelerometer test system for new line of
semiconductor accelerometers used in automotive airbag systems
·
RAYTHEON SYSTEMS Dallas Texas.
Provided analysis of and low cost (0.1X) alternatives for government spy satellite telecom system proposal, resulting in
cancellation of original proposal and winning of alternative contract.
·
PHILLIPS INDUSTRIES - Electrical Harness Division
Garland Texas.
Defined, designed, prototyped, and documented production test system for all of their transportation product lines. Expandable
system tests ~400K electrical harnesses per year.
PERSONAL:
Swiss-Italian-German heritage, married with children, Christian. Enjoy family
activities, woodworking, musical instrument design, desktop video origination. Visual and musical arts supporter. Regional and international science fair
judge.
Last modified: 23-Jan-2006