Summary
Work History
Education
Skills
References
Affiliations
Languages
Timeline
Generic

Alex Farell

Santa Clara,CA

Summary

Accomplished engineer with wide and deep expertise in all facets of modern SOC development both as an individual contributor and as a lead. Proven ability to develop innovative solutions and enhance system performance and reliability.

Work History

Principal Engineer

Qualcomm
  • Contributed to diverse architecture and design roles as both an individual contributor and SOC lead.
  • Led Virgo SOC development, delivering highest-end enterprise-class WiFi AP featuring industry-first 4x4 MU-MIMO SOC.
  • Specified and developed debug capabilities for global WiFi/BT connectivity solutions within Coresight-compliant architecture.
  • Researched RISC-V architecture, validating its potential as a replacement for ARM cores.
  • Architected and implemented a configurable RISC-V CPU subsystem.
  • Achieved widespread proliferation of RISC-V cores, marking the first adoption within QCOM in applications such as the SoC root-of-trust, DDR controller, sensor subsystem, always-on control processor, etc.
  • Oversaw the development of QCOM's current global IoT SOC platform architecture and acted as the lead for the Debug and CPU workgroups.

Sr Staff Engineer

AirGo Networks
  • Contributed in varied architecture/design roles in ARM processor integration, NOC/Bus infrastructure, protocol bridges, DMA engines, PCI, USB, Gig Ethernet, and SDIO interfaces.
  • Engineered debug architecture to enhance system reliability.

Staff Engineer

Transmeta Corporation
  • Contributed to multiple CPU generations through diverse design and verification roles.
  • Developed C++ modeling platform to assess front-pipe implementation options for VLIW processors.
  • Architected and designed the Instruction Fetch Unit, Branch Predictor, Branch Target Buffer, instruction parser and decoder, and instruction issue unit of an 8-wide VLIW processor.

Staff Engineer

Exponential Technology
  • Worked on the Memory Management Unit design for BiCMOS ECL-style PowerPC CPU. The fastest PowerPC processor at the time was much faster than the offerings from Motorola and IBM. It was used briefly by Apple and several Macintosh PowerPC clones. The startup, unfortunately, died when Steve Jobs came back to Apple and canceled the contract.

Staff Engineer

MicroUnity
  • Circuit design of instruction and data caches for a multimedia VLIW processor.

Staff Engineer

Digital Equipment Corporation
  • Various full-custom circuit and logic design roles.
  • Worked on a version of the Alpha processor for laptops.
  • Worked on ARM architecture-based, full-custom CPU which was 10x faster and more power efficient than any available ARM solution.
  • Focused primarily on the logic and circuit design of the I/O pads, internal interconnects, and Bus Interface Unit.

Staff Engineer

Sun Microsystems
  • Worked in the full custom circuit design of the UltraSPARC’s Load/Store unit.

Education

M.S. - Electrical Engineering

Stanford University
Palo Alto, CA

B.S. - Electrical and Communications Engineering

ITESM
Mexico

Skills

  • Processor Architecture
  • Platform Architecture
  • Debug Architecture
  • Logic/circuit design
  • RTL development
  • System modeling
  • Project management

References

  • Robert Young, VP Technology
  • Karthik Neravetla, Senior Director Engineering
  • Jeff Shabel, Senior Director Technology
  • Tarik Isani, Senior Director Technology, Joint effort on RISCV architecture
  • Alan Young, Senior Director Technology
  • James Ball, Principal Engineer
  • Guido Frederiks, Senior Director Technology

Affiliations

  • Sailboat Racing
  • Mountain Biking
  • Hiking
  • Backpacking/camping
  • 4x4 off-roading

Languages

English
Native/ Bilingual
Spanish
Native/ Bilingual
Portuguese
Professional

Timeline

Principal Engineer

Qualcomm

Sr Staff Engineer

AirGo Networks

Staff Engineer

Transmeta Corporation

Staff Engineer

Exponential Technology

Staff Engineer

Digital Equipment Corporation

Staff Engineer

Sun Microsystems

Staff Engineer

MicroUnity

M.S. - Electrical Engineering

Stanford University

B.S. - Electrical and Communications Engineering

ITESM
Alex Farell
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