ABOUT PACMAN

Who is Pacman?

Name: Paul Antony Collins (aka PAC or PACMAN due to registering scores on video games)
Date of Birth: 1st October, 1963
Marital Status: Single

Photo

Sorry if this breaks your screen but this is me :-

Where I Live

I live in a village called Histon, just north of the famous University City of Cambridge, UK.

Where I'm From

I originate from Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire in the North of England near the border of South Yorkshire.

What I'm Currently Doing

When I'm not at home working on the website or startup programs you'll probably find me watching my favourite football team - non-league Histon FC. I've supported them since watching them beat Shrewsbury Town from League 2 by 2-0 on 13th November, 2004. I've hardly missed a home game since and last season (the first ever in the Blue Square Premier - known by most as the Football Conference) never missed a game, home or away!

I won't dedicate much space here to Histon by may do in the future elsewhere on the site. Other notable victories in the recent past have been a 5-0 thrashing of local rivals Cambridge United in the FA Trophy 1st Round (which produced this famous YouTube video) and then this season (2008-2009) they beat both Swindon Town and Leeds United at home 1-0 in the FA Cup 1st and 2nd Rounds respectively - both League 1 teams. Unfortunately they lost to Championship side Swansea City 2-1 in Round 3 but pushed them all the way.

Where I Work

I'm currently self-employed, focussing mainly on the startup programs side of the web-site but also expanding other sections and doing some PC building, repairing and cleaning when I can get it. It's something I've always wanted to do but never had the gumption to do it but with the current bleak job prospects due to the global economic downtown I thought I'd at least have a go - hence you'll see some advertising around these pages now. It's better than being sat here doing nothing!

The last time I worked for an employer was during a trial period with F-Secure Corporation, who are an internet security company that "protects consumers and businesses against computer viruses and other online threats from the Internet and mobile networks." Their headquarters are based in Helsinki, Finland but they have offices all around the world with major ones in San Jose (California, USA) and Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia). Unfortunately the project I was working on for them was put on hold and therefore the trial period was terminated before it reached a conclusion. At least I had to chance to visit Helsinki and spend an extended period in both San Jose and Kuala Lumpur - 3 countries I've never visited.

I previously worked as Senior Electronics Design Engineer for an Italian owned company called EuroTech Ltd but when I joined them they were called Arcom Control Systems Ltd. They design embedded boards, single board computers and associated peripherals and have been in business since 1982. Unfortunately, due to a combination of poor sales outlook and the new ownership they had to make some people redundant in March 2008 - with me being one of the unlucky ones. I enjoyed my time there and it gave me the opportunity to design a computer motherboard for the first time - which is something I always said I could do but never had the chance to.

Prior to EuroTech Ltd worked for a relatively small company called Radiant Networks PLC as a Hardware Engineer in their Network Systems Group. They're developing a unique way of delivering "broadband" data services to small businesses and residential customers and have been in business since 1997.

Prior to Radiant I worked for a large multi-national telecoms company called Marconi. I thought I had job security with them but after 15 years in hardware design they saw fit to close the Poole site with the loss of 600 R&D people.

My CV:

Paul Collins

Profile:

A self motivated Electronics Design Engineer with 21 years experience

Key Skills:

• Experienced in all stages of the product cycle from concept through to installation and support
• Experience of setting up and contributing to ISO9000 based development processes
• High-speed digital design including signal integrity analysis (HyperLynx BoardSim) and timing considerations (Chronology Timing Designer)
• Microprocessor design using AMD (Geode GX/LX), Motorola (68K, PowerQUICC) and Virata (Helium with dual ARM7 cores) products
• FPGA/CPLD design – Altera (Max+PLUS II – schematics and AHDL), Mentor FPGA Advantage (Renoir/ModelSim/Leonardo Spectrum – VHDL), Xilinx (ABEL) and Lattice ispLEVER (ABEL and VHDL)
• Implementing Boundary Scan (JTAG) to improve product testability using Asset InterTech and Corelis ScanPlus
• Schematic capture and PCB layout using Zuken-Redac (Visula and Cadstar), Mentor (BoardStation and PADS), Viewlogic (ViewDraw) and Cadence (OrCAD)
• Awareness of C/Assembler programming and analogue interfacing
• Design for EMC compliance and to meet RoHS/WEE directives
• Capable of adapting to any design environment with the ability to work as an individual or as a member of a multi-disciplined team

Additional Skills:

• Hardware design tools specification, selection, installation and support
• Windows 9x/NT/ME/XP – fully proficient and very knowledgeable
• Prototype SMT and TH PCB assembly and rework
• PC building – specification, build, configuration and support
• Web-site design using MS FrontPage
• MS Office and Visio

Achievements:

• Individual contribution award for place and route of a Motorola PowerQUICC microprocessor daughterboard. Initial efforts from an in-house CAD bureau were not acceptable. With CAD resources limited and being self-taught I was tasked with the rework. The final PCB was 2 inches smaller and used 2 fewer routing layers
• Individual contribution award for helping complete the design of a daughterboard replacing an ASIC ahead of a tight schedule
• Grant of a patent for producing a design that out-performed available off the shelf solutions available at the time. An existing E1 (2Mbit/s) standard circuit used on high-volume products had to be manually tuned during production and the components used were due for obsolescence. The completed design resulted in both improved performance and a cost saving

Education:

1982 – 1986: BSc Electronic Systems & Control Engineering – Sheffield City Polytechnic
1980 – 1982: TEC Diploma in Technology – North Lindsey College of Technology

Career History:

2004 – 2008: EuroTech Ltd, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire

Eurotech Ltd design, develop and manufacture embedded single board computers and custom desgins for the Transportation, Communications, Defence, Security, and Industrial markets. As part of a small design team I worked on the following projects:

• 2008
  • On-going support of existing company products and small-scale custom projects.
• 2006
  • Specification, design, release and support of a Compact PCI format x86 architecture headless single board computer based upon the AMD Geode LX700 processor. The design incorporated VLSI in the form of DDR SDRAM and multi-port 10/100M Ethernet switches.
• 2004
  • Specification, design, release and support of an EBX format x86 architecture single board computer based upon the AMD Geode GX533 processor. The design incorporated VLSI in the form of Xilinx CPLDs, DDR SDRAM, SDRAM, Flash, USB2.0 and CardBus controllers and dual 10/100M Ethernet and supported the PC/104-Plus (PCI) architecture.

2001 – 2003: Radiant Networks PLC, Little Chesterford, Essex

Radiant were a small company producing an innovative Broadband Fixed Wireless Access system. As part of a small design team developing the company’s digital products I worked on the following projects:

• 2003
  • Design of an 8-port E1 (2Mbit/s) and T1 (1.544Mbit/s) daughterboard.
• 2002
  • Specification of an E3 (34Mbit/s) and T3 (45Mbit/s) daughterboard.
  • Redesign of a Virata Helium 210 processor board to support both 66MHz and 80MHz versions of the processor (based upon a dual ARM7 core).
  • Design of a 6-port ATM25 daughterboard.
• 2001
  • Fault finding, EMC testing and subsequent rework of a 4-port E1/T1 daughterboard.
  • Design of a 19” sub-rack to house double-height extended Eurocard

1986 – 2001: Marconi PLC, Poole, Dorset

Marconi was a large company producing optical and digital switches, multiplexers and cross-connects for the Telecoms market. As part of a medium sized design team I worked on the following projects:

• 2001
  • Design tools specification, procurement, installation and support.
• 2000
  • Redesign of an ATM unit for SDH to incorporate E3, T3 and STM-1 (155Mbit/s – electrical and optical) interfaces.
• 1998
  • Design of an ATM card for the company’s SMA range of SDH multiplexers.
  • Placement and routing of Motorola PowerQUICC microprocessor daughterboard based around the IEEE P1386.1 PMC (PCI Mezzanine Card)
• 1997:
  • Design of an STM-1 line interface unit.
  • Design of a 10Base-T Ethernet PCM module based upon an AMD PHY.
• Pre-1997:
  • Seconded to another Marconi site to provide FPGA support
  • Design of a daughterboard to replace a SONET ASIC.
  • Design of a replacement E1 standard circuit.

Training:

ATM, SDH, Telecomms/Datacomms, Boundary Scan, FPGA Advantage, Doulos Comprehensive VHDL, MS Office 2000, C

Interests:

PC building, upgrading, maintenance and support
Keen golfer – 11 handicap
Web-site design and maintenance – author of the world leading web-site for PC start-up programs, respected by Tech Support staff worldwide

Copyright © Paul Collins, 2001 - 2010
Pacman's Portal
All rights reserved