Sven started his career in the electronics industry almost 40 years ago working for LM Ericsson in Stockholm. For the first 15 years Sven worked as an electronic component test engineer testing everything from 7400-series devices to microprocessors like the MC6800 and MC68000. In 1990, he moved into ASIC design, starting with the Motorola H4C (0.35µm) and now working with today's 28nm processes from TSMC. Over the course of the last few years, Sven started to work with programmable devices. Today, he works as an ASIC/FPGA designer at the consulting company, Realtime Embedded in Stockholm.

Terry Ashton (a.k.a. RadioNut) escaped from repairing broadcast television and radio receivers upon entering the world of spaceflight instrumentation. During the last 35 years, he has worked in space research at the UK universities of Birmingham, Southampton, and, currently, Leicester, where he has been the link between academia and engineering. As a problem solver in electronics design issues, Terry has been able to develop circuits that have allowed academics to obtain experimental data of unquestionable integrity, publish peer-reviewed papers, become giants in the astrophysical community, and enjoy early retirement in exotic locations. He has always been grateful for the natural ability of academics to not recognize the business end of a soldering iron or understand how a spanner works ‒ facts which remain conducive to Terry's continuing employment.

Brian Bailey is an independent consultant working in the fields of Electronic System Level (ESL) methodologies and functional verification. Prior to this he was the chief technologist for verification at Mentor Graphics. He is the editor for the EETimes EDA Designline and a contributing editor to EDN. He has published six books (working on book number seven – some people never learn), given talks around the world, chairs international standards committees (is he crazy?), and sits on the technical advisory board for several EDA companies. Brian graduated from Brunel University in England with a first class honours [sic] degree in electrical and electronic engineering (yes – he is a Brit, so of course he is crazy). He may also be found at Brian Bailey Consulting.

Jacob Beningo is a Certified Software Development Professional (CSDP) and home-brew connoisseur who specializes in the design of robust embedded systems. As a consultant, he has worked in various industries including consumer, defense, medical, and space. He enjoys developing real-time software using the latest techniques and pioneering his own. Jacob has been involved in numerous hardware development projects including navigational systems that have won the Best of CES award. He has written technical papers on embedded design methods and taught courses on programmable devices, boot-loaders, and software methods at engineering conferences and online. He holds Bachelor's degrees in engineering and physics from Central Michigan University and a Master's degree in space systems engineering from the University of Michigan. He can be contacted at jacob@beningo.com or at www.beningo.com.

Duane's involvement in the hardware and software design world goes back to the days of the CDP1802 and Z80 up through current microcontrollers such as PIC and ARM. After hours, he designs microcontroller and motor control boards for small robots under the moniker SteelPuppet. In his day job, he has been dishing out PCB layout and DFM advice via the Screaming Circuits blog since 2006. He is also a contributor to industry technical publications and conferences on the topics of trends in prototyping, and ways to improve efficiency in product development efforts. FPGAs are a new venture for Duane. Follow him on this site as he transitions from gate array newbie, expands his skill set, and adds FPGA functionality to his robots and other projects.

My real name is Ken Boyette. I was given the nickname Kenwick Von Strobe by the guys at a recording studio where I was an engineer in the early 1970's and it stuck with me. I was once a student of design at NCSU, but being a sort-of musician, a drummer, I decided to pursue recording and analog design as we had to build a lot of our own equipment. Over the years analog led to digital, and I designed digital stuff because there were bills to pay. I founded two successful companies based on open microprocessor busses: STD and VME, and I believe in open standards. I've learned a lot, and still do, and would like very much like to pass on what little knowledge I've accumulated in hopes that someone else can figure out what to do with it from here.

Tom is an amazingly inept electrical engineer; an overpaid technician, really. He cut his teeth in the USAF working on the electronics of such modern day aircraft as the F-4 and the B-52. During this time, he figured out that he liked electronics and went on to Kollij in Southern Illinois, where he only barely graduated. He went on from there to set a shining example to other engineers – of what not to do.  Definitely, he's not the brightest bulb in an elevator that doesn't go all the way up, and talking to him is often like beating your head on a dead horse. He recognizes that he's no good at engineering, but likes it anyway. Be forewarned in conversations with him, though: He loves mixing metaphors.

Paul Clarke (aka @monpjc) is an embedded digital electronics engineer with strong software skills in assembly and C for embedded systems. He has worked in electronics for more than 20 years, having started out at the age of 10 making simple Maplin kits, learning to program a ZX81 in machine code, and even making interfaces to plug in the back of a ZX Spectrum. He has also taught himself VHDL. Paul enjoys helping others learn more about electronics and programming, but his real passion is FPGA design and the magic it can do.

Lou Covey has been a professional communicator for 40 years, including a brief stint with the national press corps covering the Ford/Carter presidential campaign in 1976. He founded Footwasher Media and New Tech Press in 2005 to address the changing face of media and journalism in the 21st Century.  He cut his tech teeth in the early 70s writing about alternative energy, nuclear weapons design and networked personal computers.  In the 80s he began writing in-house content on microcontrollers, passive components and control systems.  Since 1990 he has focussed on semiconductor design and the last truly interesting area of chip design, programmable logic.

Jan Decaluwe is a technical and business consultant in electronic design and EDA. He received an MS in electronic engineering from the Catholic University of Leuven in 1985. Subsequently, he worked at Imec and the University of São Paulo. In 1990, he went to Alcatel, where he learned about HDL-based design and synthesis. This technology has fascinated him ever since. In 1991, Jan co-founded Easics, a SoC design services company, where he is still a director. He is also a director at Sigasi, a company that makes intelligent IDEs for VHDL and Verilog. He is the author of MyHDL, an open-source Python-based HDL, which he sees as a step toward agile hardware design.

Thenmugilan Dhananjayan is a VLSI Lead Design Engineer at HCL Technologies. He says that a number of people, including himself, are doing research on the meaning of his name, but that only his father, who gave him this name, knows its exact meaning. Thenmugilan has a diverse range of experience, and over the past five years, he has had the opportunity to work with many leading companies and corporations, such as Intel, Airbus, Parker, AIG, and Xafinity Paymaster. In Chennai, India, he received a degree in electronics and communication engineering from Anna University in 2007 and a diploma in electronics and communication engineering from Central Polytechnic Collage in 2004. In his role as a VLSI Lead Design Engineer, he has worked on aerospace, consumer electronics, and medical projects, and he now finds himself working on next-generation (4G) mobile technologies.

Paul Dillien's first job in semiconductors was as a chip designer. After completing four chips he turned to marketing them. In the past 30 years, he's spent half his time marketing FPGAs. His first involvement with FPGAs crashed and burned because of place-and-route software issues. He was then hired by one of the "Big Two" in strategic and tactical marketing roles. Paul is the author of "The FPGA Market" report, which gives a unique insight into this market sector. Currently he represents a number of UK SME companies, including a leading vendor of encryption IP for FPGAs.

Brian Durwood is co-founder and CEO of Impulse Accelerated Technologies Inc., makers of the Impulse C to FPGA optimizing compiler.  His history in programmable logic dates back to Data I/O in the 80s, when it launched an early HDL called ABEL. His current focus is on tools, IP, and design services that help software developers be more productive accelerating code in FPGAs. Brian's blog on All Programmable Planet addresses issues common to hardware/software co-design. He was previously a VP at the Tektronix high-frequency multichip module facility. He is a graduate of Brown and Wharton and lives in the San Francisco Bay area.

Mike Field (a.k.a. "Hamster") hails from Christchurch, New Zealand. Since escaping from a former life as a software developer, he is now a UNIX system administrator by day and a self-taught FPGA hacker by night.

Since acquiring his first FPGA board in 2010, Hamster escaped from the pain of soldering irons to what he now considers to be "the bliss of FPGAs."

You might also catch Hamster fooling around with Arduinos, PICs, or a Raspberry Pi on Hackaday.com.

Strangely enough, he is often to be found pondering the philosophical implications of FPGAs while going for long runs. Sometimes his runs are very, very long...

Robin Findley is founder of Findley Consulting, LLC, a full-spectrum provider of embedded systems design and consulting services.  Robin has over 15 years experience designing software and electronics systems, including system architecture, hardware and software co-design, and user interface.  In addition to embedded systems, he enjoys studying neuroscience and artificial intelligence, and is doing private research in brain modeling, high-order visual cognition, and artificial general intelligence (AGI).  Robin has a BSCS from Missouri University of Science and Technology, including 3-years study in Electrical Engineering.

Javier (Javi) Garcia-Lasheras started his professional career as a microelectronics researcher and entrepreneur, sharing his time between the Communications, Signals & Microwave Group of the Public University of Navarre and the Navarran European Business Innovation Centre. He has played several roles in the electronics product development industry, having worked as an embedded designer for a wide spectrum of companies ranging from EMS providers to IP licensors. Nowadays, he is strongly committed to the open-science movement, focusing his interest in the synergies established by the reciprocal questions "How are well-known physical processes a key enabler for developing new information technology?" and "How are state-of-the-art information technologies critical for understanding new physics?"

Jacek Hanke is the CEO of the Polish company Digital Core Design (DCD), a leading provider of IP cores for ASICs and FPGAs. He is one of the co-founders of DCD, which was established in 1999 by three graduates from the Silesian University of Technology in Poland. Their studies at the Faculty of Automatic Control, Electronics, and Computer Science opened doors to the EDA world. When large companies from around the globe started to offer lucrative jobs in the US, Japan, and Taiwan, they instead decided to launch their own company in Poland. Since their early beginnings, the "apple of its father's eye" was the 8051 family of microcontroller cores. The most recent version – the DQ80251 – is more than 67 times faster than a standard 8051, thereby making it the world's fastest 8051 IP core. Read Jake's blog at Programmable Planet if you want to learn more about how to create fast IP cores for programmable devices.

George Harper is Vice President of Marketing at Bluespec Inc., which is extending the boundaries of synthesizable high-level design to include models, test benches, and all types of implementations and enabling early emulation for modeling, verification, and software development. Harper brings over 20 years of marketing and engineering experience from the semiconductor, communications, and storage industries. He has overall responsibility for Bluespec's product planning and marketing initiatives. Previously, he was Director of Marketing at Trebia Networks where he managed the product planning and marketing initiatives for a storage network processor family. Prior to that, he held senior marketing positions at Conexant Systems (formerly Maker Communications) and Shiva Corp. and engineering positions at LSI Logic, in both California and Massachusetts, specifically in the areas of chip design and microprocessor sales. Harper has a BSEE and MSEE in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard University.

Steve Leibson is an electrical engineer, technology journalist, market researcher, marketer, and entrepreneur. In his engineering career, he designed computers and workstations at HP and Cadnetix. He is currently Director of Strategic Marketing and Business Planning at Xilinx and is an IEEE Senior Member. He was Editor-in-Chief of EDN Magazine and Microprocessor Report, and he ran the Microprocessor Forum for a couple of years. Steve made two technology infomercials with Leonard Nimoy in beautiful downtown Burbank, acting as Mr. Spock's technical expert. Since 1985, he has studied and used many forms of printed, online, video, and live media to communicate with technical people in the electronics industry, from the design engineer up to the CEO.

Back in his university days, Jack was interested in digital system design and embedded system design, but due to a lack of lecturers who were experts with regard to digital system design he was primarily exposed to embedded systems (microcontrollers and processors). He started his career with one of the "FPGA Giants" and worked in a team that handled FPGA configuration and interfacing to external flash memory. Although he was in an FPGA company, most of his appointed tasks required him to create software, scripting, and testing... nothing much related to real digital system design. Attracted by a better work-life balance, Jack moved over to Agilent Technologies, where he currently works as a hardware R&D engineer specializing in FPGA design. He holds a Bachelor's degree (Hons.) in electronics engineering.

Michael Conrad Mannering has had a succession of nicknames since school days, the latest being Crusty. Describing himself as a dilettante, gentleman researcher in advanced electronics, he is -- in fact -- a retired Electronics Assurance Engineer, with over 35 years served in the London Underground (the Tube). He started life in electronics as a 12-year-old playing with the first red and blue spot germanium transistors to hit the amateur market. A lot of jobs later, he landed the post of electronics technician at the London Underground Research Laboratories. It was here that he learned to work with analog, digital, and microprocessors. During these years, he traveled to the dark side and became heavily involved in software development, but -- with the wisdom of old age -- he has returned to the only true electronics path. Michael is mildly dyslexic and has found academic study highly challenging; luckily, he has had a lot of good tutors, great practical facilities, and is a voracious reader of anything, so -- with the advent of the word processor -- the problems of dyslexia are kept at bay. Last but not least, he trains dragons and fights evil geniuses (on the Xbox).

Clive "Max" Maxfield is six feet tall, outrageously handsome, English, and proud of it. In addition to being a hero, trendsetter, and leader of fashion, he is widely regarded as an expert in all aspects of electronics (at least by his mother).

Max received his BSc in Control Engineering in 1980 from Sheffield Hallam University in Sheffield, UK. He began his career as a designer of central processing units (CPUs) for mainframe computers. Over the years, Max has designed everything from silicon chips to circuit boards, and from brainwave amplifiers to steampunk "Display-O-Meters." He has also been at the forefront of Electronic Design Automation (EDA) for more than 20 years.

Max is the author and/or co-author of a number of books, including Designus Maximus Unleashed (banned in Alabama), Bebop to the Boolean Boogie (An Unconventional Guide to Electronics), EDA: Where Electronics Begins, FPGAs: Instant Access, and How Computers Do Math.

Luke Miller (a.k.a. "theFPGAexpert"), an EE from Clarkson University, is a husband, father of six (soon to be seven), farmer, mathematician, inventor, and a Christian. He has designed ASICs for IBM and, over the past 13 years, has designed integrated systems for Lockheed Martin. His expertise is making FPGAs do what they are supposed to do – great things. Luke is now a consultant helping companies with DSP, FPGA, and system integration. His combination of skills and humor make for a refreshing mix in a so-called "politically correct" world. His passion is not only for electronics, but also for his fellow nerds.

Warren Miller (a.k.a. Dr. DSP) is not a real Doctor of DSP but has extensive experience in regard to programmable devices. He was one of the inventors of the 22V10 (back when bipolar was a technology, not a disorder) while he was at Advanced Micro Devices. He also worked at MMI and Actel in programmable device product planning and applications, authoring more than 100 conference papers, application notes, magazine articles, and user manuals. Warren has also held Director and VP-level positions managing a networking engineering team at AMD and the demand creation and FAE team in distribution for Marshall and Avnet. Currently, he is an independent consultant for www.wavefrontmarketing.com, providing technical marketing for semiconductor, IP, and tools companies. 

William Murray has over 25 years of experience as an electrical engineer and product designer across the aerospace, wireless, telecom, semiconductor, printing, and medical device sectors. Among other projects, he is currently working on a method to make long car trips more comfortable for people with back pain through Lake Geneva Research, a non-profit bio-medical research startup. He has a Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.

Harnhua (or "Harn") Ng is an electrical engineer and systems programmer on a quest to find a good balance between software and hardware. From using FPGAs as network routers in his university days; to working on FPGA-based embedded systems at Xilinx in San Jose and AMD in Tokyo; to using datacenters to crunch FPGA designs, Harnhua has been lucky to work with, and learn from, great teachers and engineers from all over. As co-founder and one of the FPGA design problem solvers at Plunify, he now writes Perl scripts and technical articles for a living (when he's not making sure that there is enough coffee and snacks in the office pantry).

Andrew Porter (MCGI, BSc, CEng, MIET) is an analog electronics design engineer at EADS Astrium working alongside digital and software engineers covering aerospace applications. This involves designing electronic control systems, including those used in hazardous areas dealing with very low level (microvolt and nanoamp) signals. He also designs switch mode power converters, both isolating and for point of load. In order to effectively interface with innovative digital circuit designs using FPGAs and ASICs, there is a need to appreciate what can be done within the analog domain to provide the best, mutually-beneficial end results. For this reason, Andrew is particularly interested in pursuing new digital methods to enhance analog performance within the analog domain, before the analog signals enter the stage of data conversion.

David Rosbottom works as a Hardware Design Engineer for Astrium, Europe's leading space company. Over the past five years, he has worked on high-speed digital communications payloads with an emphasis on the design of the circuit boards. He recently completed a week-long course on VHDL, and currently this is the sum total of his experience in this area. However, he does have a fair amount of experience with embedded software design in C. David studied at the University of York, UK, gaining a Master's degree in electronic engineering with music technology. His outside interests are music and audio technology – with a little bit of marine fish keeping thrown in just to ensure that he manages to spend all of his pay check each month.

Jackie Sampsel, a.k.a. "thrakkor," has been a musician since sixth grade, starting on the trumpet before jumping to the much cooler electric bass. FX for bass and guitar, and the desire to build his own, are what caught his interest in the field of electrical engineering (not to mention all the times he stuck a key in an electrical socket growing up). A fellow BSEE student at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, helped him land an engineering intern gig at Catalina Research, where he became hooked on FPGA design using VHDL to represent a high-speed decimating FIR filter for his senior project. Jackie's passionate about FPGAs and VHDL and has since worked for DRS Technologies and Sierra Nevada, recently returning to a small company atmosphere and former colleagues as a Senior Engineer at Colorado Engineering Inc. He's been lucky enough to have been mentored by, and work with, some super-smart engineers, both in the past and the present.

Bill Schweber is an electronics engineer who has written three textbooks on electronic communications systems, as well as hundreds of technical articles, opinion columns, and product features. In past roles, he worked as a technical Website manager for multiple EE Times sites and as both Executive Editor and Analog Editor at EDN. At Analog Devices, he was in marketing communications; as a result, he has been on both sides of the technical PR function, presenting company products, stories, and messages to the media and also as the recipient of these.

Prior to the marcom role at Analog, Bill was associate editor of its respected technical journal, and also worked in its product marketing and applications engineering groups. Before those roles, he was at Instron Corp., doing hands-on analog- and power-circuit design and systems integration for materials-testing machine controls. He has BSEE from Columbia University and an MSEE from the University of Massachusetts, is a Registered Professional Engineer, and holds an Advanced Class amateur radio license. Bill has also planned, written, and presented online courses on a variety of engineering topics, including MOSFET basics, ADC selection, and driving LEDs.

Adam Skriver is an electronics designer, currently working on products for the aerospace and oilfield industries. Prior to electronics design, he worked in the Alberta oil patch; he says his time there has given him a unique perspective on how electronics are used in the field and the importance of good design. Now he works with Altium Designer to create highly specialized PCBs, carrying everything from power supplies to high-speed signaling and barrier-protected circuits. When he is not at his workstation, Adam is designing and decorating bespoke cakes with his partner Marieke for their small business, Coastal Cake Company, in Parksville, British Columbia, Canada.

Jeremy Smith is a 45-year-old who graduated from Bristol University, UK, in the days when, he says, "We had to make our own 0s and 1s." He has worked in various electronics development roles in companies such as PIPS Technology in Southampton and Solid State Logic in Oxford. He has developed a wide range of embedded systems hardware, specializing in programmable logic development, working in areas such as fault-tolerant and fail-safe logic design, image processing, and high-speed serial interfaces. Jeremy is currently developing video processing functions in programmable logic for use in visual aids for visually disabled people, where the requirements are for affordable, easy-to-use, handheld devices that provide functions such as contrast enhancement, false color, and magnification, with the ability to display images on standard televisions.

He also does a large amount of road bike racing and has for reasons best known to himself a backside which has appeared on national television and in national newspapers.

Evgeni Stavinov is a longtime FPGA user with over a decade of diverse design experience. He has held various engineering positions at Xilinx, LeCroy, SerialTek, and CATC. His current job is with Teledyne, where he is a systems engineer. Evgeni is also the owner of OutputLogic.com, an independent consulting company that offers a variety of FPGA-related services, including system architecture design, feasibility analysis, design migration, algorithm development, and timing closure. He is the author of several technical articles and a book, 100 Power Tips for FPGA Designers. He holds MS and BS degrees in electrical engineering.

Tobias Strauch is an HW/FPGA/EDA freelance contractor based in Munich, Germany. He is also the founder of EDAptix, which offers a variety of EDA hardware and software tools. Prior to this, he worked for Aptix and LSI Logic and also was an FAE for the ChipIt Prototyping System (now Synopsys). His main interests are FPGA-based prototyping systems, timing-driven RTL partitioning, and cycle-accurate, model-based virtual prototyping. For the last few years, Tobias has been working on system hyper-pipelining (SHP), which is a technology to multiply the functionality of IP cores. He believes that this technology offers promising advantages over existing multi-core approaches.

Adam Taylor is a Principal Hardware Engineer at Europe's leading space company, Astrium, where he has a dual role as leader of the electronic design group and a responsible engineer leading product development. He has spent the last 12 years developing both hardware and FPGA solutions for radar, safety critical systems, and thermal imaging, among others. Adam now focuses on space-based telecommunications and cryptographic processors, and he is interested in reliable design methods upon which he intends to write a book (if he ever gets around to it). He is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the Institute of Engineering and Technology, and he holds a First Class Bachelor of Engineering Degree from Sheffield Hallam University.

Chris Taylor is a project manager and engineer at SparkFun Electronics. For the last six years, he has been designing boards and writing guides to help designers and engineers easily incorporate electronics into their DIY projects. He has a sometimes unhealthy obsession with integrating electronics into everything and loves to be involved in bizarre projects that take electronics out of the strict development realm and put them in the artistic realm. Chris received a degree in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Colorado in 2007.

Jason Teo is a graduating PhD scholar from the National University of Singapore. He studies laser reflectance modulation of microelectronic devices due to changes in temperature and electro-optical effects. Prior to his academic work, he worked at Agilent Technologies and also slogged it out at a startup company as its first employee. Jason's passion for FPGAs dates back to an internship stint in Silicon Valley. In 2009, he won a European real-time embedded systems design competition for international graduate students. He believes in engineering innovations to improve the status-quo and likes a hands-on approach to his projects.