Staff

Axotron is a one-man company in Linköping run by me, Per Magnusson. I got my MSc degree in Computer Science and Technology (essentially Electrical Engineering because of the courses I chose to take) from Linköping Institute of Technology, Sweden, in 1997 and I have many years of experience of electronics design.

You can get some less formal information about me and my career in electronics from the interview that EEweb did in June 2013.

Education

 

1988-1991 Upper secondary school: 3-year technical program, electrical engineering

I spent upper secondary school in Hedemora and Borlänge in Sweden. My grade point average was above 4.9 (5 being maximum).

1991-1997 Master of Science: Computer Science and Technology

I studied at the MSc program "Computer Science and Technology" at Linköping Institute of Technology (LiTH) with a break for military service 94-95. The fourth year I spent as an exchange student at Stanford University and I did my Master's Thesis work at Bell Labs in New Jersey. I got my degree in February 1997 and was awarded the "Tryggve Holm medal" since I had the highest grade point average on my program (4.95 out of 5) that year.

1995-1996 Fourth year abroad at Stanford

I had the opportunity to study a year at Stanford University, which I found very rewarding. I took the chance to enroll in courses about analog and radio frequency electronics whose counterparts were not offered in Linköping. I also took courses on Fourier transforms and adaptive filters among other subjects.

1996-1997 Master's Thesis: Bell Labs in New Jersey

After the year at Stanford I moved to New Jersey where I did my Master's Thesis at Bell Labs. The subject of the project was to design a fast serial link to be used between chips in an ATM chipset. The technology used was 0.35 µm CMOS. The work resulted in four approved patent applications and the title of the thesis was "Design of a 2 Gb/s Serial Link".

Minor courses

In addition to what has been mentioned above, I have taken a number of separate courses:

  • "C-programming", undergraduate course given at LiTH
  • "High-Speed Electronics", graduate course given at LiTH
  • "Phase Locked Loops and Frequency Synthesizers", PhD-level course at LiTH
  • "UGL" (Group/leadership course), given by Sententia Ledarskap, 5 days
  • "VHDL for design and modeling", given by HARDI, 5 days
  • "Project Leadership", given by ProjektStyrning AB, 3 days
  • Course about operating the IVF EMC labs, 2 days
  • "Advanced EMC - Printed Circuit Board Design", given by Combitech, 2 days
  • "RF Transceiver Architechture, Systems Deisgn, and Evaluation for Wireless Systems" given by CEI-Europe, 5 days
  • "Signal Integrity and High Speed System Design", given by Lee Ritchey, 3 days
  • Radio amateur, March 2012. Call sign: SA5BYZ
  • "Mastering Power Integrity with Signal Integrity and EMC Foundations", given by István Novák/CEI-Europe, 5 days.

Work experience

 

1993-1995 Extra job at Epact Technology AB

In addition to studies and military service I worked extra as an electronics designer/consultant at Epact.

1997-2000 Employment at Enea Epact AB

After I got my degree I started working full time at Epact Technology AB (later acquired by Enea and renamed Enea Epact AB) as an electronics designer/consultant.

2000- Axotron

I run my own private company Axotron in parallel with my full-time employment. The main activity is smaller consulting projects within the field of electronics.

2000-2006 Employment at Kreatel Communications AB

During this period I worked as an electronics designer and group leader of the hardware group at Kreatel designing the electronics of broad-band set-top-boxes.

2006-2007 Employment at Motorola

Kreatel was acquired by Motorola in 2006 but the technical aspects of my work were not affected in any major way. I filed two patent applications during this employment.

2007- Employment at SP Devices

At Teledyne SP Devices I work primarily with the design of state-of-the-art high-speed digitizers. Digitizers are like oscilloscopes, but usually with higher resolution and without a built-in user interface. Central parts are analog front-ends, ADCs and FPGAs.

Tools

Distinctions

The Saab Scania Scholarship, 1995
The Tryggve Holm Medal, 1998
"Leader of the Year" within orienteering in the province of Östergötland, 2010
US Patent 5767751 Automatic gain control for pulse amplitude modulated signals
US Patent 5835046 Analog-to-digital converter for differential signals
US Patent 6011808 Redundant codes for clock recovery in serial links
US Patent 6150922 Serial communication technique
US Patent 7621780 Shielding device and method for electrical connectors