Sunrise Micro Devices

This morning, my employer Sunrise Micro Devices emerged from stealth mode, meaning I can finally say what I've been up to the past ten months, and why I relocated.

In short, we're building a Bluetooth Smart (aka Bluetooth Low Energy) radio. That in of itself is not particularly newsworthy (though our power numbers are), but in a unique twist we are providing it as a licensable block that can be integrated into other silicon designs.

Our goal is to enable system-on-chip vendors, especially those without much radio/RF expertise, to add Bluetooth Smart connectivity to their ICs, drastically reducing their cost and time-to-market.

If this sounds familiar, it's the sort of model that ARM uses for their processors. As it turns out, ARM happens to be one of our investors.

But that's enough horn tooting. What does this have to do with me?

If I look back over my career, it's steadily progressed to lower-and-lower-level software; In parallel I've also targeted progressively more resource-constrained systems. Having already made the jump to microcontrollers, the opportunity to be involved in new silicon bring-up and move to a completely new radio platform was too good to pass up.

So, I'm responsible for SMD's software team, with no legacy designs or code keeping us from DoingThingsRight(tm). I'm getting to wear even more hats and help shape many aspects of this design, and it's proven to be quite an exciting adventure so far!

Incidentally, If working on very low-level software that will be embedded into a few billion or so devices sounds appealing, and you're open to living in the tropical paradise that is South Florida, drop me a line!

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