|
Custom MMIC Design Services (CMDS) was founded in May 2006 by Paul Blount with the goal of providing innovative and cost-effective solutions for your MMIC design needs. Below are the biographies of the key players within CMDS.
Publications
Paul Blount Dr. Charles Trantanella Dave Folding
Paul Blount
President and CEO
Mr. Blount has been responsible for the design, layout and product introduction of numerous RF, microwave and MMW products throughout his 15 year career in the industry. His designs have sold in the millions of both quantities and dollars. Some of the products and product lines he has developed include:
Microwave & MMW Driver and Power Amplifiers (6 – 45 GHz)
MMW Double Balanced and Sub-harmonic Mixers (15 – 45 GHz)
Distributed Amplifiers (DC – 20 GHz, DC – 50+ GHz)
Cellular Band Digital Attenuators (2, 3, 5 and 6 Bit)
Cellular Infrastructure Amplifiers (450 MHz, 900 MHz, 1900 MHz, 2200 MHz)
Darlington Amplifiers (DC – 3 GHz, DC – 6 GHz, DC – 15 GHz)
WiMax and WLAN Amplifiers (2.4 GHz, 3.5 GHz, 5.8 GHz)
Mr. Blount received his Bachelor of Engineering from Brunel University in 1991 and a Master of Science in Microwaves and Optoelectronics from University College London in 1994. He has worked at Hittite Microwave Corporation, Alpha Industries (now Skyworks), and Thorn EMI Electronics.
Mr. Blount has served as a designer, team leader, program manager and business development manager throughout his career. He has taken all of his products through the full development cycle including: customer specification definition, circuit design, foundry liaison, preliminary test, production test, applications support, and returned material handling. He has specified and de-bugged test software for new product evaluation and has designed and maintained models and layout design kits for Libra, ADS, and Cadence Virtuoso.
Mr. Blount is a member of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), has served on the technical program committee for the Gallium Arsenide IC Symposium from 2001-2004, and is currently a member of the 2008 IEEE RFIC Symposium Technical Program Committee. He is a member of the UK based IET (Institute of Engineering and Technology) and is a Chartered Engineer.
Dr. Charles Trantanella
Vice President of Engineering
Dr. Trantanella has been a pioneer in the microwave industry since 1994 when he started working at Hittite Microwave Corporation. Specifically, Dr. Trantanella revolutionized the use of spiral baluns in double balanced mixers as well as passive frequency doublers, thereby creating two of the most successful product lines in the history of Hittite Microwave Corporation. Some of his highlights while at Hittite include: The first plastic encapsulated mixers at C- and X-bands, a complete line of ultra-small mixers covering the X- to Ka-bands, the first space qualified mixer die at 500 MHz, and a family of integrated downconverters from 700 MHz to 32 GHz.
Dr. Trantanella received his B.S.E.E. from Tufts University in 1989, and his M.S.E.E. and Ph.D.E.E. from The University of Arizona in 1991 and 1994, respectively. He worked for Hittite Microwave Corporation from September 1994 until February 2006, when he left to become a high school mathematics teacher. He joined Custom MMIC Design Services full-time as its vice president in September 2007.
During his time in the microwave industry, Dr. Trantanella has been a design engineer, program manager for both internal R&D and external programs such as SBIRs, and product line manager for the mixer, downconverter, and passive doubler product lines. Dr. Trantanella has taken approximately 120 products from conception to production by participating in every aspect of the design cycle.
Finally, Dr. Trantanella is a licensed high school mathematics teacher, a semi-professional musician, and an amateur writer.
Mr. David Folding
Vice President of Operations
Mr. Folding is a seasoned veteran of the RF/Microwave industry, having started as a production engineer with Raytheon Corporation in 1986. While at Raytheon, Mr. Folding was responsible for transitioning MIL-883 screened ALQ-135 EW subsystems from engineering to production. Subsequently, Mr. Folding joined Hittite Microwave Corporation in 1994, where he held key positions in manufacturing and operations that led to Hittite's growth in annual sales from $2M to $20M over a span of four years. After Hittite, Mr. Folding moved to M/A-COM in 1999 where he became a product line and business development manager for the commercial wireless business sector. In this position, Mr. Folding was responsible for key design wins in commercial infrastructure and mobile wireless applications. In June 2009, Mr. Folding left M/A-COM to become the Vice President of Operations at Custom MMIC Design Services, where he is responsible for launching and growing the company's commercial and military component sales.
Mr. Folding received his BSEE from the University of Massachusetts Lowell in 1986. and his MBA in Marketing from Bentley University in 2006.
Finally, Mr. Folding is an avid golfer, surfer, and beachgoer who enjoys spending time with his family on Cape Cod.
|
|
We at CMDS take pride in our published work as we continue to set the standard for high frequency microwave circuit design. Below is a list of our papers and conference presentations that have been published in the open literature, starting with the most recent publication. Many of these publications are available through your local technical library or (for a small fee) through the IEEE’s “Xplore” system.
Blount, P., M. Olson, R. Tshudy, D. Foote, and C. Trantanella, “An Automated Phase Cancellation Method for Measuring Ultra-High Third Order Intercept Points,” 2004 IEEE MTT-S Symp. Digest, pp. 1727-1730, 2004.
Blount, P., J. Cuggino, J. McPhee, “A 3.5GHz Fully Integrated Power Amplifier Module,” 2001 GaAs IC Symp. Digest, pp. 111-114, 2001.
Blount, P., “An LMDS, Subharmonically Pumped Image Reject Mixer,” 2001 GaAs IC Symp. Digest, pp. 41-44, 2001.
Blount, P. and C. Trantanella, “A High IP3, Subharmonically Pumped Mixer for LMDS Applications,” 2000 GaAs IC Symp. Digest, pp. 171-174, 2000.
Trantanella, C., “Ultra-Small MMIC Mixers for K- and Ka-Band Communications,” 2000 IEEE MTT-S Symp. Digest, pp. 647-650, 2000
Blount, P., “Inexpensive Packaged Subharmonic Downconverter MMICs,” NASA Tech Briefs, June 2000.
Trantanella, C., P. Blount, and M. Shifrin, “A GaAs +3V Low-Noise Integrated Downconverter for C-Band Applications,” 1999 IEEE GaAs IC Symp. Digest, pp. 199-202, 1999.
Blount, P., “MMIC Converters for K and Ka-Band Communications,” NASA Tech Briefs, July 1999.
Trantanella, C., M. Shifrin, and B. Bedard, “Low Cost Plastic Encapsulated Mixers for C/X-Band Applications,” 1998 IEEE GaAs IC Symp. Digest, pp. 131-134, 1998.
Blount, P., “A Packaged, Low Cost 17-20 GHz Subharmonic Downconverter for Satellite Receiver Applications,” 1998 GaAs IC Symp. Digest, pp. 139-142, 1998.
Smuk, J., P. Blount, C. Trantanella, and M. Shifrin, “Miniature P-Code GPS Translator,” 1998 IEEE MTT-S Symp. Digest, pp. 1199-1202, 1998.
Trantanella, C.J., M.D. Pollman, and M. Shifrin, “An Investigation of GaAs MMIC High Power Limiters for Circuit Protection,” 1997 IEEE MTT-S Symp. Digest, pp. 535-538, 1997.
Pollman, M.D., C.J. Trantanella, M. Shifrin, V. Aparin, and D. Upton, “A Low Cost Packaged Chip Set for 5.8 GHz ISM Band Applications,” 1997 IEEE RFIC Symp. Digest, pp. 33-36, 1997.
Smuk, J., V. Aparin, C. Trantanella, and M. Okandan, “Hybrid Semiconductive/High-Temperature Superconductive Tunable Preselector,” 1996 IEEE MTT-S Symp. Digest, pp. 1481-1484, 1996.
Trantanella, C.J., D.G. Dudley, and K.A. Nabulsi, “Beyond the Born Approximation in One-Dimensional Profile Reconstruction,” Journal of the Optical Society of America A, Vol. 12 No. 7, pp. 1469-1478, July, 1995.
Lang, R.J. and P. Blount, “Modelling and Characterisation of a Ka-Band Monolithic PHEMT Low Noise Feedback Amplifier,” Modeling of Microwave Active Devices & Ckts Conference, 1994.
Dudley, D.G., C.J. Trantanella, and K.A. Nabulsi, “A Born Extension with Super- Resolution for One-Dimensional Profile Inversion,” Proc. of Progress in Electromagnetic Research Symposium, Pasadena, CA, July 1993.
Lang, R.J., P.Blount, R.H.Wallis, S.J.Holmes, A.P.Long, S.P.Marsh, S.W.Bland, D.Y.Watts, and R.T.Blunt, “UK Capability in HEMT ICs,” JFIT Conference 1993.
Dudley, D.G. and C.J. Trantanella, “A Waveguide Power Balance Theorem for Obstacles and Junctions,” Proc. of Progress in Electromagnetic Research Symposium, Cambridge, MA, July 1991.
|
