HEMANTH TENKOD
Chandler,Arizona
Summary
- Innovative and strategic thinker with multiple US patents, 18+ Years of Technical Depth: Expert-level specialization in device drivers, RTOS architectures, networking/wireless stacks, and full-lifecycle embedded systems applications
- Firmware Excellence: Proven track record of architecting and deploying high-performance, secure, and robust firmware that dramatically optimizes system reliability and connectivity speed
- Cross-Functional Leadership: Adept at bridging gaps between hardware, software, and product test teams to steer complex engineering projects from early concept to mass production
Overview
20
20
years of professional experience
Work History
Technical Staff Engineer - Applications
Microchip Technology Inc
04.2018 - Current
- Achieved secure provisioning architecture for cutting-edge ARM 32-bit secure microcontroller families, enhancing system integrity.
Implemented asymmetric and symmetric cryptographic key generation through PUF (physically unclonable function) and CAM-Lite (crypto acceleration module), increasing security measures.
Established secure end-to-end communication sessions between factory hardware security modules (HSM) and production target devices, improving operational efficiency. - Led the development of a UMT suite to standardize production testing of microchip wireless modules.
Oversaw implementation of PIC32MZ microcontroller utilizing TAP ICDREG (Microchip custom) MIPS’s EJTAG and ARM’s SWD protocols.
Directed the creation of a load board featuring an RF matching circuit to achieve peak performance consistent with the golden module. - Early Adopter Release of RNWF02 Secured Wi-Fi
- Lead a team of 4 and successfully delivered all the collaterals for the most secured IoT solution based on the RNWF02 Wi-Fi module. Simple 8-bit AVR128DB48 MCU is enabled with Azure Cloud (MQTT) connectivity, OTA DFU and Wi-Fi Provisioning demos. The solution involved UART, SPI and SST flash drivers with Wi-Fi, Socket and System services to abstract the complexity of AT command and responses handling.
- Amazon Frustration Free Setup on PIC32MZ-W1
- A method to seamlessly connect a Wi-Fi device to home AP using the Amazon Frustration Free Setup (FFS). The project involves the pre attestation of the device with Amazon FFS and implementation of FFS library hooks. The project included PIC32MZ-W1 H/W symmetric crypto engine driver to deliver hash(SHA256) and HMAC. The H/W asymmetric crypto engine driver was used for ECDH key generation and signature verification.
- Bring up of Wi-Fi interface on IMOLA2 Generic purpose MIPS 32bit MCU
- PIC32WK is a generic purpose MIPS core Microcontroller with on-chip wireless LAN peripheral. The work involved design and development of WLAN driver to interface with Microchip Harmony Network stack. The design involved having common memory pool between network stack and MAC driver. Due to the limited memory of processor the STA and AP codes are placed at different sections and reused as heap/stack at run time depending on the mode of operation.
- 802.11 regulatory domain test interface for CY920 and RF Tx/Rx testing using IQ-View
- The project involved adding support of channel restriction and power management based on the standard country codes like US/EU/JP/GN. It also included addition of test framework for Tx and Rx of 802.11b/g/n frames. The testing is done using the IQView setup. The Tx signal power envelop, LO leakage, EVM and avg power in db is captured as the test reports. The RSSI, PER data are captured in the Rx test reports.
- Supported major customers on Bare-metal and Linux based WLAN Firmware
- Simultaneous TLS sessions support on 22KB receive buffer using TCP Rx Windowing
- Fast reconnect to resolve 802.11 CCMP packet number jump issue in silicon
- Fix for BLE advertisement hang issue with repeated HCI interface Up/Down
- Interoperability issue fix for the continuous RTS-CTS loop due to the short vs long preamble
- Solution to WINC1500 multiple AKM issue in 802.1x Cisco enterprise setup
- Resolved several critical mass production issues
Principal Engineer
Microchip Technology Inc.
Bangalore India
11.2010 - 04.2018
- Wi-Fi BLE Gateway Cloud demo using WINC3400
- The Wi-Fi BLE Gateway is a plug and play device which connects to cloud and share the BLE node data with it. It discovers the surrounding BLE nodes then starts the ATT discovery. All the Notify/Indicate characteristics are enabled, and the data received on them would be published to cloud servers. The remote cloud client can send data to BLE nodes by writing to the characteristics UUID.
- Linux Kernel Space and User Space link
- Implementation of Wi-Fi Driver (kernel space) and WPA Supplicant (user space) communication for CY920. The netlink socket programming is used to exchange data between supplicant and CY920 WLAN driver.
- Bluetooth GATT custom profile demo in SAMA5D2 Yocto and Build-root
- Demonstration of WINC3400 Bluetooth peripheral capability by adding 3 BLE GATT examples using the BlueZ host stack. The project is delivered with the standard Yocto and Buildroot package of SAMA5D2 ARM Cortex A5 host MPU.
Sr. Software Engineer
ZiLOG India Electronics Pvt Ltd Inc, Bangalore India
Bangalore, India
04.2006 - 11.2010
- Interface Realtek 8711 WLAN with eZ80
- The project deals with the eZ80F91 microcontroller interface with the Realtek 8711 WLAN chip. The Realtek 8711 is interfaced using SDIO protocol. The Realtek RTL8711 is a highly integrated and cost-effective wireless LAN network interface controller that integrates a IEEE802.11a/b/g Wireless LAN transceiver, PA, MAC and a direct sequence spread spectrum base band processor into one chip.
Education
Bachelor of Engineering - Telecommunication Engineering
JNNCE
India04.2005
Skills
- Proficient in C, C languages and python script
- Wi-Fi 80211b/g/n/ac/ax, Bluetooth BR/EDR, Bluetooth Low Energy(BLE)
- TCPIP, MQTT, TLS(SSL)
- Serial Protocols: UART, SPI, I2C, HCI, SDIO, TAP, JTAG, SWD
- FreeRTOS, ThreadX, RealTimeZiLogKernel, Linux
- MIPS, ARM Cortex M0, ARM Cortex A5, M7
- Tools: Wireshark, BPA600 Frontline, IQView, GIT, SVN, JIRA and Salesforce
- Other Skills: Driver Development WLAN Firmware BLE Firmware BlueZ Yocto/buildroot Paho MQTT WolfSSL Socket programming
Accomplishments
- US12563611B2 “Smart and Secure SoftAP” is a unique way to configure the SSID and Passphrase for every provisionee.
- Wi-Fi Channel LUT with Power Spectrum Density using channel bonding feature” to provide faster connection.
- Hardware unlocking with conditional firmware for tiered microcontrollers with crypto engines
- Wi-Fi 7 from Zero Workshop by Swinnovate
- Artificial Intelligence with Machine Learning, Deep Learning by Udemy
- TensorFlow 2: Deep learning and Artificial Intelligence by Udemy
Patent Grant:-
Patents Filed:-
Advanced Training & Certifications:
Timeline
Technical Staff Engineer - Applications
Microchip Technology Inc
04.2018 - Current
Principal Engineer
Microchip Technology Inc.
11.2010 - 04.2018
Sr. Software Engineer
ZiLOG India Electronics Pvt Ltd Inc, Bangalore India
04.2006 - 11.2010
Bachelor of Engineering - Telecommunication Engineering
JNNCE