William D. Sheppard
Tel: +1 (480) 558-9770
wdsheppard@saguarosystems.com

Objective

Mr. Sheppard's objective is to obtain work as a Design/Development Consultant/Contractor in an environment which has need of his 32 years of experience in the design of digital and analog electronic hardware systems, design of high density FPGAs, and the design and development of electronic imaging systems based on high speed CCD, CMOS, and Phototransistor image sensors.  As a Design Consultant, Mr. Sheppard has his own development lab equipped with scopes, logic analyzers, computers, and design software.  This allows him the ability to operate either at a client’s site or independently in his own facility.

Experience

Mr. Sheppard has over 32 years experience in the field of electronic hardware and software design and development.  For the past 3 years, he has been an Electronic Design Consultant and has completed various projects both independently and as part of larger design teams.  Previous to this, he was in charge of various electronic development teams concentrated mainly in the high speed electronic document capture field and was responsible for the hardware and software development of high-speed electronic imaging systems.  During his career, Mr. Sheppard has personally designed the camera electronics for more than 13 different image sensors.  During this time, Mr. Sheppard has gained an in depth familiarity with popular hardware design tools such as Orcad, Aldec, Protel, and Schema schematic capture programs. In addition, Mr Sheppard has significant experience with Xilinx and Altera FPGA design and the following design, synthesis, and simulation  tools: Xilinx Foundation Series 3.3i, ModelSim from Mentor Graphics, Synopsys FPGA Express, Exemplar Logic’s Leonardo Spectrum, Xilinx XST,  Xilinx ISE 5.2i, and Altera Max Plus 2. Mr. Sheppard is also very competent with the VHDL High Level Design Language for synthesis and has experience with VHDL Testbench generation for design verification and  validation.  Mr. Sheppard also has embedded software experience with multiple microprocessors using assembly and 'C' language programming tools.  Mr Sheppard also has recent experience with the IEEE 1394, Firewire High-speed bus as well as familiarity with the USB interconnect bus.  He also has an in-depth experience with other computer interconnect standards such as SCSI, RS232/422, Ethernet, and LVDS.

Mr. Sheppard has been the chief architect and design engineer for several digital communications, processing, and imaging systems and has been significantly involved in the detailed electronic hardware, mechanical, and software/firmware design of these systems.  He has also managed the multi-disciplined engineering teams which were responsible for the development of these systems.

The most significant of these systems are documented below. Details of any of these systems can be provided upon request.

Education:

BSEE from Arizona State University (1971) Magna Cum Laude
MSEE from San Diego State University (1974).

 Major Systems worked on:

2002 – Design of a DSP Module (ADSP-21CFLCS from Analog Devices) with an Analog Front End Module for a Machinery Monitoring System utilized for early failure detection.

2001/2002 – Integration of custom Color Image Processing ASIC into the electronics of two high speed color document scanners from two different scanner manufacturers.

2001 -   IEEE 1394 (Firewire) compatible color video camera (480 X 640).

2001/2002 - Scanner Simulator for testing 4 different Scanner Interface Modules in a production environment.

2000 -  PCI Interface and Sensor Driver Module for a Marconi CCD38 X-ray sensitive CCD Sensor for dental x-rays.

2000 -  High speed Phototransistor scanning array and control for a high speed duplex document scanner.

2000 -   Sensor Control Module for an IR image sensor.1999 - 

The Photomatrix Millennium Scanner, a very low cost, medium performance, 70 ppm          (page per minute), duplex, document scanner.

1998 -   The Photomatrix 3614 Aperture Card Scanner.  This is a technology update for the 10 year-old technology in the original ACS aperture card scanner.

1997 -  The Photomatrix VICS (Vision Image Capture Software).  This software is based on the Kofax Image Controls Tool Kit.  VICS and the Photomatrix Series 9000 Scanner provide a 200 page per minute (400 image per minute, duplex) image capture solution.

1997 -  The Photomatrix Series 9000 Document Scanner.  After the purchase of the Photomatrix Imaging Division by Scan-Optics in June 1999, this product was renamed the Scan-Optics Series 8000 Document Scanner.

1995 -  The Photomatrix Series 5000 Document Scanner

1994 -  The Xscribe Vision 486 Stenographic Machine.  This was a battery operated 33 MHZ 486 PC/Steno machine with dual LCD, Hard disk, Floppy, and dual PCMCIA slots

1992 -  The Photomatrix Series 6000 Document Capture System.  This was an integrated, duplex scanning system, which captured documents at up to 80 pages (160 images) per minute.

1990 -  The Educational Testing Service (ETS, developers of the SAT college entrance exam) Grayscale Image Capture System.  This was a grayscale capture system based on the document scanner developed for the United States Patent Office 1986.

1989 -  The EDS (Ross Perot’s / GM’s Electronic Data Systems) Roll Film Capture System.  This system was still operational in Sacramento, California as of the Fall of 1999.

1988 -  The Photomatrix Aperture Card (ACS) Image Capture System.

1986 -  The Backfile Image Capture System (BICAPS) for the United States Patent Office, which was used to scan the entire collection of existing United States Patents.  Photomatrix developed the BICAPS system.

1982 -  The ImageNet System developed for the US Navy and Blue Cross / Blue Shield by PRC.

1978 -      TeleFiche Image Capture and Transmission System developed by PRC. This system was the basis for the issuance to Mr. Sheppard of US Patent 4,513,390.

1976 -      Multiprocessor Communication System - A multiprocessing system consisting of over 50 microprocessors communicating together over a high-speed backplane bus.

1974 -      Peripheral Interface Equipment - A versatile communications interconnect system that interfaced various dissimilar naval communications systems.

Employment history:

10/99 to present -  Electronic Design Consultant DBA Saguaro Systems Product Design and Development  Company  

6/99 to 10/99 Scan-Optics, Inc. - Design, integration, and manufacturing of electronic scanning devices.  Position - Vice President of Hardware Technology  

1985 to 6/99 Photomatrix Corporation: - Design, integration, and manufacturing of electronic imaging and scanning systems.  Position - Vice President of Engineering Development   

1982 to 1985 Saguaro Systems - Engineering development firm.  Position - Principal, consultant in the areas of custom processing systems and imaging systems  

1977 to 1982 Planning Research Corporation (PRC) - Design and integration of electronic imaging systems.  Position - Manager of Image Systems Development  

1971 to 1977 Naval Electronics Laboratory - Design and integration of electronic processing and communication systems.  Position - Electronic Engineer

1969 to 1971 Vermont Research Corporation - A manufacturer of Magnetic Drum Memories. Position - Junior Engineer while attending Arizona State University