Bios

 

Keith is the self professed “old duffer” of the group, with experience in areas as diverse as Gaming (slot machines), Avionics, Military Radio, and Computer Numerical Control (CNC) of machines tools. His interests include Amateur Radio, Amateur Robotics, Micro RC aircraft, Wood and Metal working, and his part time job as the Scout Master of a local Boy Scout Troop.

Keith lives in Arizona with his wife Shirley and several cats, where he finds the moderate climate a nice change from the cold and snow of his boyhood in Montana. His shop includes a Knee Mill, two metal Lathes, assorted metal and wood tools, as well as, a well equipped microcontroller and RF design bench. Note both benches are buried under numerous projects, and the picture on the home page is actually a picture of his office work bench on one of its cleaner days.

Keith’s start in electronics was at the tender age of 15, when he designed his first personal computer, consisting of a 6502 running at 2 MHz, with 2K of 256×4 91L12 static rams, 2K of 512×8 2708 UVEPROMs, and a discrete TTL video interface capable of 32 characters by 16 lines. Since that time he has moved up to higher integration microcontrollers, but he has never lost his love of 8-bit design.

Keith’s love of RF appeared during his stint as the only digital guy in a commercial and military RF house. Once he got past his fear of waves, and discovered the use of Smith charts, he cast caution to the wind and tackled 1-2 GHz synthesizers and FM receiver design. Keith even earned his Technician Radio Amateur license back before they eliminated the Morse code requirement.

Keith now works for Microchip Technology in Chandler Arizona as a Technical Staff Engineer, which he describes as an enjoyable teaching job without all the politics of a university. He has published numerous applications notes, technical papers, and even a book on writing multi-tasking code. He can be reached through his work phone and email, although he does caution folks that email is the preferred solution as he typically hides in the lab most days.

 

Padmaraja has degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering. His work experience includes working in motor control, developing hardware and software for home electronics and appliances. Like some other members of this community, Padmaraja is a “duffer” too, but a bit younger:-).

Padmaraja lives in Arizona with his wife and daughter. Padmaraja is been working as applications engineer at Microchip Technology for over 8 years and tries hard(or hardly tries) to develop some capacitive touch applications along with his team. He has a handful of articles and publications in his name. He can be reached on his work email or work telephone, but be cautioned using the telephone because his accent may be mistaken to an Indian:-).

 

I am an Applications Engineer at Microchip Technology Inc., since 2003. I worked with various PIC microcontrollers in applications using Graphics, Ethernet, and USB. I received my BSEE and MSECE from Georgia Institute of Technology.

I am an applications engineer at Microchip technology who received my Bachelors and Masters from Purdue University.

I started my career in the automotive sector working on advance safety systems. These systems are not visible by the end user, but are an important part of saving lives. I enjoyed this work, but always had a touch of jealousy watching others design the interfaces that the users would see as they drive.

After leaving the automotive industry I worked as a Field Applications Engineer calling on customers that used human interfaces in their products. This change led me to my current position working on the development of user interfaces in the appliance market.