Robert E. Owen

Consultant in Digital Signal Processing and VLSI

19348 Columbine Court
Saratoga, CA US-95070-4039
Telephone +1 (408) 446-9783
Fax +1 (408) 446-2025
e-mail bowen@data-time.com

Summary

  • Job Functions
    • Technical Marketing Engineer
    • Product Marketing Engineer
    • Applications Engineer
    • Technical Writer (FrameMaker, Microsoft Word, and PowerPoint)
  • Technical Areas
    • Communications and Multimedia Digital Signal Processing
    • Electronic Music and Multimedia Digital Audio
    • DSP Computer-Aided Design Software
    • VLSI Processor Design
  • Typical Output
    • Product Marketing Collateral, New Product Plans, Target Specifications, Marketing Requirements Document, Market Research, Customer and Training Presentations, Application Notes, Technical Articles, Data Sheets, Advertisements, User and Training Manuals

Education

  • BSEE — Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY
  • MSEE — Case Western Reserve, Cleveland, OH

Work Experience

1988-Present — Independent Consultant

1985-1987 — Bipolar Integrated Technology, Beaverton, OR


Applications Engineering Manager for DSP and floating-point IC product line.

1982-1985 — Independent Consultant

1980-1982 — Fairchild Advanced Development Labs, Palo Alto, CA


Applications Engineer for VLSI DSP processors

1979-1980 — Intel, Santa Clara, CA


Design, application and product engineering for i2920 and follow-on DSP processors

1975-1979 — ESL / TRW, Sunnyvale, CA


Engineering and Product Manager for DSP floating-point array processor line

1973-1975 — Micro Systems, Phoenix, AZ


Company Founder and Designer of Test Systems

Until 1973 — Gen-Rad, Inc., Concord, MA


Design/applications of DSP instrumentation

Consulting Clients

A partial list:

  • Weitek
  • ARGOSystems
  • AMI/Gould
  • AMD
  • Analog Devices Inc.
  • µLinear
  • IDT
  • BIT Inc.
  • NEC
  • LSI Logic
  • DSP Group/Ceva
  • Fujitsu
  • IRIS/Bontempi (Italy)
  • Mentor Graphics/EDC (Belgium + US)
  • Medianix Semiconductor
  • Zoran Corporation
  • Anam Technology Inc.
  • Creative Labs/E-Mu Systems
  • Philips Semiconductors/ESTC
  • Philips Semiconductors/TriMedia
  • Clarkspur Design, Inc.
  • LSI Logic/ZSP Corporation
  • National Semiconductor Corporation
  • Chromatic Research, Inc.
  • Angeles Design Systems, Inc.
  • Infineon Technologies/Siemens Microelectronics (US + Israel)
  • BOPS, Inc.
  • TriMedia Technologies, Inc.
  • WIS Technologies, Inc.
  • Atheros Communications, Inc.

Career Summary

I am a hardware circuit design and digital signal processing (DSP) person by training. Initially I was a systems design engineer but then became a processor architect for ICs at the functional and instruction set level. Doing this I also developed an interest in hardware/software design tools for processors. Over time I moved away from design engineering into applications and technical marketing roles.

After years in technical marketing, I have moved more to the creative writing end of that job. As a consultant I most often work for marketing directors to create technical/marketing materials. These are in the form of data sheets, applications notes, white papers, slide presentations, news releases, technical magazine articles, brochures, user and training manuals, web pages, advertisements, etc.

My technical understanding means I utilize the engineering staff sources efficiently, while my marketing knowledge means I can work with little marketing supervision. I am pro-active in creating text and graphics so that most interaction is verbal and reviewing, rather than requiring detailed written input.

My skill and interest are in describing a complex product with graphics and text based on arranging its core functions into a natural hierarchy. This provides ease-of-understanding for the technical user, but also makes it straightforward to highlight features and their benefits for marketing purposes.

Work experience has been as both a full-time employee and as an independent consultant. I work worldwide because of my willingness to live overseas and because the Internet makes working at a remote site practical for documentation.

Prepared January 2003