Firework: a heterogeneous system design for offloading Protocol Buffers onto FPGA hardwareGained significant system design experience from the following project milestones:- Translated an algorithm from an open source library into a hardware accelerator RTL design- Designed a 4-stage pipelined processor w/ 2 parallel datapaths: Protobuf Processing Unit (PPU)- Implemented a heterogeneous system (PPU + ARM Cortex-A9) on an Arria 10 SoC Dev Kit- Wrote a device driver that provides user-space access to a memory-mapped FPGA peripheral- Modified the protobuf library, wrote sample user-space applications, profiled the systemOther project achievements:- Open sourced and wrote a comprehensive tutorial on HW accelerator and system design- Presented the datacenter design philosophy to AT&T's SVP of Network Cloud and Infrastructure- Established a new area of work at the Foundry: FPGA / heterogeneous system design“Mario successfully delivered one of the most technical and challenging projects ever completed in the Foundry.”Source code: https://github.com/att-innovate/firework

A partial list of completed projects and other initiatives:- Developed in-kernel network packet processing applications using extended Berkeley Packet Filter (eBPF): explored the use of​ eBPF for implementing high-performance virtual network functions (VNFs) that are executed in the Linux kernel. Skills developed: C, eBPF, Linux kernel networking- Surveyed the ecosystem of containers (Docker, CoreOS rkt, LXC/LXD), networking (Docker libnetwork, CoreOS Flannel, SocketPlane, Weave, Calico), and orchestration (Docker Swarm, CoreOS Fleet, Kubernetes)- Built my own trivial containers: a deep dive into the core container technology (i.e., process isolation via Linux namespaces and cgroups)- Developed the frontend of a video streaming proof-of-concept that demonstrates the use of Xerox PARC’s Content Centric Networking (CCN) protocol: a forward-looking network protocol that addresses content rather than hosts in a computer network- Developed an IFTTT Channel connecting AT&T’s SMS API to other web services AT&T’s SMS API (unfortunately, never went public)

As a member of the Clocks Team, I refactored code for accessing clock privilege registers adding enhanced security and standardization to the clocks subsystem of the next-generation Maxwell GPU.

As a member of the CAD Team, I learned and used Perl, regular expressions, and SQLite to scrape function usage information from an in-house developed GPU design tool, structure and store the data in a relational database, and generate Linux-style man pages on the company Wiki.

- Drove the Engineering Workstation (EWS) Program to closure through extensive interaction with IT and Product Development management and employees- Vigorously tracked, analyzed, and resolved EWS exceptions (both requested and consumed)- Crafted a transition strategy that satisfied IT and Product Development business requirements for the next-phase deployment of engineering workstations