Christopher Diltz

Hardware Verification Engineer with over 6+ years of experience with formal verification and model checking. Have led the project development of both design exploration and full verification using model checking with COTS EDA tools, such as Cadence JasperGold and Siemens/OneSpin. Worked to construct comprehensive verification plans as part of a larger verification team that provides assured and secure microelectronics. Performed a broad variety of different verification methodologies, including Formal Verification, Directed Testing Simulation and Hardware Emulation, Power Analysis and Power Side Channel Analysis using commercial EDA tools. Design verification applied at both block and system level at both RTL and Gate Level Netlists. Worked with a broad range of customers, including the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC), US Space Force and Defense Microelectronics Agency (DMEA)

Also experienced software developer and researcher, specializing in machine learning and analytics. Worked on multiple different ML projects that provide several different data analysis capabilities, including supervised, unsupervised, semi-supervised and reinforcement learning capabilities to aid in automated decision making for the DoD and Air Force.

Edaptive Computing Inc, Dayton OH May 2017 - Present

Principal Verification Engineer & Project Manager

• Developed, executed verification plans, performed formal verification and model checking using COTS EDA tools, such as Cadence JasperGold and Siemens/OneSpin 360 tool suite on both ASICs and FPGAs at the RTL and gate levels of design abstraction. Target SoCs contained RISC-V, PowerPPC processing cores, SRAMs, different data buses with multiple protocols (AMBA, OPB, PLB) and different external peripherals, including UART, GPIO, PCIx and AES encryption modules. Target SoCs written in either Verilog or mix VHDL/Verilog. Verification plans leveraged multiple methodologies, including formal property verification (FPV), formal verification using apps (model checking, consistency checking, trojan detection, protocol verification, scoreboard analysis, data integrity analysis, control status register mapping, RISC-V ISA verification, combinatorial & sequential Equivalence Checking, fault injection & propagation), simulation (directed testing, constrained random, coverage driven testbench generation), and design synthesis, power estimation (average, peak power estimates). Worked closely with DoD, US Space Force & Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) to provide spend plans, updates on tracking verification plan progress and drafting reports for any issues uncovered.
• Prepared and conducted training classes on the end-to-end workflow of the Siemens/OneSpin model checker for both ECI and verification engineers from over 10 different organizations across the country, including Sandia National Labs, Booze Allen Hamilton and Batelle. The training classes discussed the setup, tool execution, debug, analysis and interpretation of results of the tool and the different verification methodologies it targets, including trojan detection, protocol verification, connectivity verification, data path integrity analysis, register mapping, logical equivalence checking, deadlock and livelock detection.
• Developed Python workflow to automatically convert formal specifications written in SVA into Synthesizable HDL Monitors. These monitors can be attached to a target hardware design and emulated in order to obtain higher code coverage that wouldn't be possible with a regular HDL simulator. Python tool workflow is written in OOP framework and leverages a Python lexer, deterministic/non-deterministic finite automaton and HDL generator to create HDL modules that capture semantics of target SVA assertion.
• Developed Python workflow to automatically perform both differential and correlation power analysis on power traces collected from HDL 128 & 256 bit AES encryption modules for the objective of recovering encryption key. Also evaluated and computed key metrics, such as Partial Guessing Entropy in order to estimate the total number of power traces needed to recover encryption key.

Subject Matter Expert (SME) - Data Analytics & Machine Learning

• Managed and helped develop software to create Enterprise AI & Machine Learning workflows for the DoD, Missile Defense Agency and the Air Force. Enterprise Machine Learning workflows allowed users without ML experience to create ML models through a TurboTax style questionnaire front end. The tool would then generate an ML model based on data provided, and supply the user with a fully trained model. Helped expand the Enterprise ML framework to include a broad variety of different algorithms and statistical tests, including t-test, Chi Square test, F test, Kolmogorov–Smirnov (KS) test, Principal Component Analysis (PCA), k-means, K-nearest neighbor, data encoding, ANOVA, time series analysis, Anderson-Darling testing, autoregressive moving average (ARMA), autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA), Fourier analysis and spectral decomposition, Markov models, Hidden Markov models, and Monte Carlo simulations. Work has also focused on both Parametric (P) and Non-Parametric (NP) statistical modeling, such as utilizing Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE), kernel density estimation and support vector machines.
• Performed research on the application of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) and fast RCNNs to power traces emitted by HDL 128 & 256 bit AES encryption modules for the targeted objective of encryption key recovery. Also performed research on the application of formal verification to software verification, including the use of Satisfiability modulo theories (SMT), SAT solvers and abstract interpretation to verify features of software code, such as deadlock and livelock.
• Have written winning Phase I & Phase II SBIR proposals for Automatic HDL Monitor workflow, developing Enterprise Applications for Security Based Verification of Machine Learning workflows, verification of machine learning algorithms.
  

Ohio University, Athens OH September 2010 – June 2016

Graduate Researcher (Mentor: Dr. Markus Boettcher)

Ph.D. Thesis: “Time Dependent Leptonic and Lepto-Hadronic Modeling of Blazar Emission”:

• My doctoral work involved understanding the broadband electromagnetic radiation emitted by a subclass of active galactic nuclei referred to as blazars. Blazars possess powerful relativistic jets that are orientated perpendicular to the axis of rotation of the galaxy directed towards the Earth. The mechanism as to how these jets are made and their connection with the SMBH in the center is poorly understood. My research involved developing two models that differed in the composition of the jet in order to reproduce the broadband light given off by blazars. Both codes were written in C and C++ using an OOP framework. I composed my own written libraries that housed a majority of the functions and methods used in my doctoral work. The results of my doctoral work suggest that the jet composition and light emitted depends largely on the type of blazar being observed.
  

Ohio University, Athens, OH June 2009 – August 2009

Research Assistant (Mentor: Dr. Madappa Prakash)

• Developed software packages in C and C++ that modeled the structure and interior of post main sequence stars called neutron stars. This software helps place better constraints on the equation of state of a neutron star and their internal structure
  

• Paylia, V. S., Diltz, C., Boettcher, M., Stalin, C. S., Buckley, D., “A Hard Gamma-Ray Flare from 3C 279 in 2013 December”, The Astrophysical Journal (817) 61P (January 2016).
• Paylia, V. S., Boettcher, M., Diltz, C., Stalin, C. S., Sahayanathan, S., Ravikumar, C. D., “The Violent Hard X-Ray Variability of Mrk 421 Observed by NuSTAR in 2013 April”, The Astrophysical Journal (811) 143P (October 2015).
• Diltz, C., Boettcher, M., Fossati, G., “Time Dependent Hadronic Modeling of Flat Spectrum Radio Quasars”, The Astrophysical Journal (802) 133D (April 2015).
• Diltz, C., Boettcher, M., “Time Dependent Leptonic Modeling of Fermi II Processes in the Jets of Flat Spectrum Radio Quasars”, Journal of High Energy Astrophysics (1) 63D (May 2014).
• Ackermann, M., Ajello, M., Ballet, J., Barbiellini, G. et. al., “Multi-wavelength Observations of Blazar AO 0235+164 in the 2008-2009 Flaring State”, The Astrophysical Journal (751) 159A (June 2012).
• Abdo, A. A., Ackermann, M., Ajello, M., et al., "Multi-wavelength Observations of the Flaring Gamma-ray Blazar 3C 66A in 2008 October", The Astrophysical Journal (731) 77A (April 2011)
• Abdo, A. A., Ackermann, M., Ajello, M., et al., "The First Fermi Multifrequency Campaign on BL Lacertae: Characterizing the Low-activity State of the Eponymous Blazar", The Astrophysical Journal (730) 101A (April 2011)
• Raiteri, C. M., Villata, M., Bruschini, L., et al., "Another look at the BL Lacertae flux and spectral variability. Observations by GASP-WEBT, XMM-Newton, and Swift in 2008-2009", Astronomy & Astrophysics, (524A), 43R (Dec 2010)
  

• Diltz, C. (May 2021), SNUGWorld 2021. "DoD State of the Art Enterprise Hardware Emulation"
• Diltz, C. et al. (Mar 2021), GOMACTech 2021. "DoD State of the Art Enterprise Hardware Emulation"
• Diltz, C. et al. (Dec 2020), ICSR 2020. "Safety Patterns for SysML: What Does OMG Specify?"
• Diltz, C. Oct 2020, OSMOSIS 2020, "TSS SoC Sign Off Methodology - Quality & Productivity Gains"
• 227th American Astronomical Society Meeting (Jan 4 - 8, 2016), Kissimmee, FL: Talk - "One-Zone Time Dependent Leptonic and Lepto-Hadronic Modeling of Blazars"
• 14th Meeting of the High Energy Astrophysics Division (Aug 17 - 21, 2014), Chicago, IL: Poster - "Time Dependent Leptonic Modeling of Fermi II Processes in the Jets of Flat Spectrum Radio Quasars."
• 13th Meeting of the High Energy Astrophysics Division (Apr 7-11, 2013), Monterey, CA: Poster - "Time Dependent Leptonic Modeling of Blazar Jets".
• 221st American Astronomical Society Meeting (Jan 6 - 10, 2013), Long Beach, CA: Poster - "A Time Dependent Leptonic Model For Blazars"