Gary L. Embler

Address: 479 Beresford Avenue, Redwood City, California 94061 USA
Phone: +1 650-906-9800
Email: Email (remove the "-no-" and "-spam-" in the address to email)
Web: https://www.inspirics.com/about/personnel/gembler/gembler.html
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gary-embler

Capabilities

Architecture, chip, board, and system design and development with extensive experience creating new products and enhancing existing products. Technical abilities include:

Highlights

Creation of new technologies: Designed multiple smart home consumer products, making the company a leader in smart home products. Designed panoramic camera systems which scaled-up to worldwide deployment, enabling the company to capture the lead in ground-level imagery for maps. Designed and developed innovative, new high-performance digital camera chip and system technologies, which allowed the company to claim the lead in internet-enabled, easy-to-use digital cameras. Designed and developed new portable computers, which enabled companies to claim the lead in portable computer technology. Designed and developed embedded control and data acquisition systems for a new medical instrument, which helped the company go public, and raise $21,000,000, after two years of operations.

Enhancement of systems: Established an audio electrical test facility which provided engineering feedback for best audio performance. Established a camera test lab and worked with OEMs to develop embedded cameras for smart phones, providing the first truly good image quality for the company's smartphone cameras. Conceived and implemented innovations in laser printer controllers, optical scanner controllers, and video digitizers. These efforts improved the company's profits through reduced development and materials costs, and increased the company's market share through the appeal of the products' unique advantages.

Design checking: Verified laser printer ASIC designs. This process insured the correct operation of the ASICs and eliminated the need for costly re-spins, thereby saving the company both time and money.

Establishment of efficiencies: Planned and organized engineering departments' facilities and procedures. The new resources and methods allowed the companies to efficiently develop products, while minimizing personnel and equipment costs.

Experience

As Senior Hardware Engineer with Google, designed and developed hardware for Google Nest™ entertainment and security devices—Chromecast, Nest Home, Nest Hub, Nest Cam, Nest Hello, and Nest Learning Thermostat. Designed schematics and programmable chips, worked with PCB layout designers, managed component selection and qualification, performed hardware bring-up and validation tests, and worked with contract manufacturers in China. Worked on three generations of Chromecasts, along with a number of other Nest devices. Awarded multiple performance bonuses. 2011 to 2023

As Senior Hardware Engineer with Google, designed, developed, and deployed custom panoramic cameras to acquire ground-level imagery worldwide for Google Maps™ Street View™. Designed system architecture, FPGA Verilog code, board circuitry and layouts, cable assemblies, automotive and battery power subsystems, embedded C firmware, system C++ software, and shell scripts. Developed camera test capabilities and performed image quality tests and optimizations. Integrated GPS and IMU units into cameras for self-contained camera pose detection. Managed production with multiple contract manufacturers. Managed engineering testing, field testing, and initial deployment. Awarded multiple bonuses for performance. 2007 to 2011.

As Imaging Engineer of Palm®, specified, selected, developed, and tested embedded cameras for Palm Treo™ and Centro™ smartphones. Designed camera image quality tests for camera competitive benchmarking and engineering development. Worked with contract manufacturers to bring-up the camera portion of smartphone manufacturing. Developed camera architectures and technology for next-generation smartphones. 2005 to 2007.

As Senior Electronics Designer of Inspirics, designed camera, game, and test cartridges for the LeapFrog® Leapster® handheld educational game console. Developed embedded camera control firmware for Sentinal Vision's networked security camera. Designed the Virgin Electronics BoomTube and BoomTube EX portable powered speakers electronics. Designed the electronics of a Nitinol-actuated miniature remoted-controlled model airplane for American X-Flyer. Designed precision optical position sensing technologies for Agilent Technologies. 2002 to 2005.

As Senior Hardware Designer with Agilent Technologies, designed and developed new digital camera technologies. Continued development of the PhotoChip™-based RCA CDS6350 digital still camera, acquired from PhotoAccess (see below). Developed new, miniature, embedded digital camera technologies for mobile phone applications. Developed optical sensor technologies for a mobile phone embedded optical finger mouse. 2000 to 2002.

As Senior Electrical Engineer with PhotoAccess, designed and developed new digital still camera technologies. Designed, simulated, FPGA-emulated, and synthesized cores for the PhotoChip™, a high-performance camera coprocessor ASIC. Designed and validated portions of the Thomson RCA CDS6350 digital still camera (internet-enabled version of the RCA CDS6300 camera), which uses the PhotoChip. 1998 to 2000.

As Senior Electronics Consultant of Inspirics, designed and developed digital camera and video digitizer technologies. Conducted a technology investigation of fingerprint sensing technologies for client product development recommendation. Developed embedded web server technologies. 1997 to 1998.

As Senior Electrical Engineer with Motorola Computer Group, designed and developed the processor, memory, PCI interface, and clock subsections of the StarPort, a PowerPC®-based, Macintosh-compatible portable notebook computer. Designed architecture and circuits, specified components, managed PCB design and assembly, and brought-up working hardware. 1997.

As Senior Electrical Engineer with Apple Computer, designed and developed the pen digitizer interface, display backlight power supply, and PC card interface of an experimental, pen-based, Macintosh PowerBook Duo®. Planned and created power control circuitry and bus interface circuitry for the Macintosh PowerBook® 500 Series. Developed the PowerPC® PowerBook® Processor Card Upgrade board for this PowerBook, and performed technology investigations for next-generation PowerPC-based PowerBooks. Designed the embedded control/user-interface system, pixel clock recovery circuit, and audio subsystem for an LCD video projector, marketed by Epson as the ELP-3500 Multimedia Projector. Conducted design verification of a compression/decompression ASIC for a the Apple Color LaserWriter® 12/660 PS. Performed emulation of a system control and image processing ASIC for the Apple LaserWriter® 8500. 1993 to 1997.

As Senior Electronics Engineer with Abaxis, had primary responsibility for designing and developing the electronics of the company's first product: The VetScan® Classic—a portable, multifunction, blood chemistry analyzer. Completed the first design and developed a functional instrument breadboard. Designed and developed the embedded control portion of the instrument prototype. Planned and built the embedded control system and the peripheral interface of the instrument pre-production pilot unit, which helped the company successfully go public. Awarded multiple bonuses for meeting project milestones. 1989 to 1992.

As Electronics Design Consultant, designed and developed computer peripherals for interfacing PCs to video equipment, laser printers, and scanners. Researched and wrote technical articles and reports for the publication Microprocessor Report. 1989.

As Chief Engineer of Tall Tree Systems, had primary responsibility for designing and developing over 20 PC expansion and peripheral products. Directed and supervised the daily activities of the engineering department. Led the company's growth from a small startup company to a company with over 30 employees and $6,000,000 per year in sales. Promoted and awarded multiple bonuses. 1983 to 1989.

As Engineer-Owner of Touchstone Designs, developed and maintained commercial and industrial equipment for clients. Designed a control system for a garment label machine, and a flat-panel desktop loudspeaker for computer sound. 1981 to 1983.

As Technical Writing Specialist with Western Electric Company, developed printed and online documentation for telephone central office switching systems. Conducted document verification tests in operating telephone offices. Promoted. 1978 to 1981.

Education

Bachelor of Science in Engineering Technology (BSET), Electrical Engineering Technology (EET), University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 1978. Primary field of study in major: Computer Technology. Graduated with honors. Overall GPA: 3.75. GPA in major: 3.85.

Associate in Applied Science (AAS), Electronics Engineering Technology (EET), Guilford Technical Community College, Jamestown, North Carolina, 1976. Overall GPA: 3.86. GPA in major: 4.00.

Continuing Education: Audio system development and testing; machine learning; camera image processing and measurement; Python, C, and Verilog/SystemVerilog; Eclipse and Git; chip design, simulation, synthesis, and test; microprocessors; component specification and reliability; telecommunications; business and management; and personal development.

Professional and personal

Professional affiliations

Published articles

  1. "Correlation-based color mosaic interpolation using a connectionist approach," G. Embler, Proceedings of SPIE Vol. 4669, January 2002 (PDF, 762kB)
  2. Color interpolation paper supplemental files
  3. "Standard PAL Chips Still Dominate PLD Market," G. Embler, Microprocessor Report, July 1989.
  4. "Program Aids System Timing Analysis," G. Embler, Microprocessor Report, June 1989.
  5. "One i.c. p.w.m. power amplifier," G. Embler, Electronics & Wireless World, December 1986, p. 43.
  6. "Digital-delay circuit is programmable," G. Embler, EDN, September 4, 1986.
  7. "Introduction to Switching Theory and Logical Design (review)," G. Embler, ComputerSmyth, March 1986.

Patents and patent applications

  1. "Alternating-current power-switching device," U.S. Patent Application US20240040088A1—inventor.
  2. "Panoramic camera with multiple image sensors using timed shutters," U.S. Patent 9,794,479—co-inventor.
  3. "Panoramic camera with multiple image sensors using timed shutters," U.S. Patent 8,493,436—co-inventor.
  4. "Techniques to reduce radio frequency noise," U.S. Patent 7,983,646, July 19, 2011—co-inventor.
  5. "Correlation-based color mosaic interpolation adjustment using luminance gradients," U.S. Patent 7,391,904, June 24, 2008.
  6. "Correlation-based color mosaic interpolation adjustment using luminance gradients," U.S. Patent 7,133,553, November 7, 2006.
  7. "Method and apparatus for canceling the effects of noise in an electronic signal," U.S. Patent 6,654,054, November 25, 2003.

Personal activities