Rickesh Ashok Kumar Email & Phone Number

Presently, I am working a key technical role in design and development of Cisco-Acacia’s next generation products.

Massachusetts Area

For the past few years, I am the architect behind design and development of automated test stations, test strategies, and software platforms for testing various Acacia’s proprietary high speed pluggable integrated coherent optical transceiver products for Optical Engineering team. I am responsible for test software framework design, development of calibration and test validation scripts, firmware regression testing, authoring test requirement specifications documents, transitioning NPI process from engineering samples to high volume manufacturing, assisting with component evaluation, reliability qualification, customer RMAs and assist MFG teams with troubleshooting failures and improve test yield.I have developed 50+ standalone projects using NI LabVIEW platform and integrated them with TestStand, CSharp/.Net and Python to add many features that made the code versatile, scalable, reliable, and intuitive to use across multiple engineering teams within Acacia.

Massachusetts Area

• Core member of Advanced Development group at II-VI Photonics (US) with responsibilities focused towards technology advancement, new product development, test development, characterization, reliability qualification and providing technical support to manufacturing teams in II-VI Photonics (China).• Developed and executed automated test codes/scripts in LabVIEW and Matlab for new product calibration and performance testing and assisted with test debug, data analysis and report generation.• Led development and testing of various product categories like Optical Channel Monitors (OCM), Tunable Optical Detectors (TOD), Transceivers (XFP/BOSA/ROSA), and Multicast Switches (MEMS) and ensured synchronization of testing efforts with design specifications and customer deliverables.• Performed accelerated life/environmental stress treatments of commercialized and new development products to quantify product integrity and robustness against the specified stress treatments of MIL and Telcordia GR Standards• Validated production wafers for product quality and long-term reliability issues, characterized failed devices, identified potential failure modes and assisted fabrication team with engineering solutions to improve device performance.• Contributed towards development and implementation of new reliability qualification test plans for validation of commercialized product wafers and helped the company to improve yield, lower manufacturing cost and reduce production cycle time by 2 months.

Massachusetts Area

• Worked on design and development of intelligent optical network components and module sub-assemblies based on Aegis Lightwave's proprietary Active Thin Films™ technology.• Contributed to the generation of scientific/technical concepts and milestones for R&D programs and worked on early development of new applications for video, data communications, telecommunications and other fast growing markets.• Managed multiple development projects and assisted with transferring new products and processes into Production Test and Assembly sites in China and Thailand.• Led the development and testing of 2.5G/10G Tunable Receivers/XFPs/BOSAs using tunable Thin-film and Etalon based optical filter technologies for DWDM channel monitoring and FTTx/PON applications.• Designed and developed test software using data acquisition and automation tools like LabVIEW and Matlab for testing of existing and next generation wavelength-tunable fiber-optics products.• Responsible for installation set-ups, calibration, maintenance and continuous improvement of existing test systems through hardware and software upgrades in R&D as well as Productions stations.• Wrote ECOs for specifications of new parts, documented software, user guides, maintenance manuals and training materials for customers, technicians and internal recordsSpecial Project:Led crisis recovery efforts for Photop Technologies following the 2011 Thailand floods and contributed significantly in setting up new production facility in Fuzhou, China in less than 8 weeks. Efforts includes defining test requirements, procuring equipment, design, construction and qualification of manufacturing test systems, management of equipment transfer complying with international customs and provide technical support to global operations and engineers in China.

Massachusetts Area

Worked with various research groups from NEU and UMass, Lowell to fabricate 3 inch Si wafer in a class 100 semiconductor fabrication clean room facility. My key roles were to assist nearly every research student at CHN with various projects ranging from wafer fabrication, designing CAD run files, performing dose tests, obtaining high resolution Scanned Electron Microscopy (SEM) images and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) characterization. Within my first year, I was responsible for training new research students on various half-a-million dollar equipment along with formulating safe operating and handling procedures for the lab equipment.

Massachusetts Area

As a R&D Test Engineer, I worked inter-departmentally under limited supervision on various complicated laboratory projects to commercialize world’s first high volume Quantum Dots (QD) based LED HDTV Displays. Assisted in designing experiments and developing non-standard test procedures to characterize optical properties of QD based display backlights. Helped to run prototype demos for various customers and managed user research studies that was used by multiple teams to make critical design improvements. I specialized in developing automated test software using LabVIEW to interface remotely QD Vision’s custom hardware and data storage platforms thereby increasing test data accuracy and productivity.

Massachusetts Area

At Northeastern University, I was privileged to work under Professor Nicol McGruer to develop a novel design for high rate manufacturing of the of Carbon Nanotube (CNT) based Nano-Electro Mechanical Switch (NEMS) device which later became the main subject of my Master’s Thesis.My Thesis investigated the behavior of different semiconductor-metal contacts with temperature and proposed ways to reduce contact resistance and improve switching characteristics of CNT-FET devices.

Massachusetts Area

My primary function at Nantero was to assist with fabrication, design, development and validation of CNT based non-volatile memory (NRAM) product prototypes, as well as write test software using LabVIEW and a variety of National Instruments hardware, as well as several other types of instrumentation and platforms. The standalone test fixtures and automated scripts I developed helped the R&D team to reduce development test cycle time by > 50%.Among the most interesting aspects were gaining hands on experience of some techniques and technology that were rather new at the time such as use of Hewlett-Packard’s Thermal Inkjet Pico-Fluidic System (TIPS) on various Nantero’s CMOS grade CNT formulations to create flexible electronics products and develop low-cost printable NRAM memory substrates.

India

During my co-op training at BPL, I assisted with fabrication and assembly of BPL’s push button telephones and performed in-circuit testing to meet the factory specifications for proper device functioning. Some of my duties included testing individual components of telephone handsets using impedance-controlled test boards to detect root cause of device failure and replace the defective parts before dispatching for assembly and final packaging. Also, assisted with technical support (software updates) and worked with automatic wave soldering equipment, reliability chambers, ESD packaging systems and PCB design/rework stations.

India

I was a summer intern at BSNL working on providing on-site trouble resolution to maintain individual functions of Base Station (BTS) equipment in good operation. Also assisted with testing network system equipment to meet specifications for individual battery and system voltages, current draw and output power and implemented internal and external alarm tests for failure notifications.Responsibilities included performing operations and maintenance tests during system power outages and documenting detailed reports on pilot level calibration of all failed systems. Collect and Process network performance data to resolve network problems based on trouble tickets from Network Operation Center (NOC) and Customer Care Center.

Masters, Electrical Engineering,Electronic Circuits And Semiconductor Devices

Activities and Societies: IEEE Student Member, Student member of Kostas Research Center, Graduate Engineering Board and NUHOC.

B.Tech, Electrical And Communication Engineering

Activities and Societies: Activities: Inter-college Tech Fest Event Coordinator, Organizer for COMSPEC - Inter-college Electronics.