www.willsommerville.com
5909 Briarwood Ct
Clarkston, MI 48346
William T Sommerville
cell phone: (810) 814-0370
[email protected]
Objective:
Engage engineering and teamwork skills in a dynamic and rigorous work environment
Experience:
Energy Conversion Devices / United Solar – Electrical Engineer
 Developed, configured, and troubleshooted industrial control systems
Prototyped, designed, released, managed, and commissioned a
proprietary reactive gas sputtering embedded control system for
60 MW/year solar cell production facility.
 Developed industrial machinery for a production line
Specified and programmed the electrical controls
Also responsible for the HMI and integrating with plant servers
 Resolved electrical issues for manufacturing of thin-film solar cells.
Eliminated EMI in ultra low current signal in oxygen sensors
Responsible for RF power supplies and tuners
Conclusively identified faults in 1 Torr pressure transducers
 Commissioned key safety systems on explosive and toxic gas alarms
Rochester Hills, MI
10/06 – present
DaimlerChrysler – Validation Engineer
 Wrote DVP&R’s based on system feature specifications.
 Validated all audio and telematics components.
Head units, amplifiers, video systems, satellite audio/video
receivers, hands free phone systems, and related parts.
 Troubleshooted CAN systems.
 Worked closely with dozens of component release engineers.
 Maintained an organized test database and issues database.
 Referenced and updated specifications for system behavior.
Auburn Hills, MI
10/05 – 10/06
Molex Automotive – Electronics Test Engineer
Contractor – temporary position.
 Validated products using industry standard DVP&R’s.
 Designed and optimized testing procedures.
Auburn Hills, MI
9/05 – 10/05
Sandia National Laboratories – MESA Institute Fellow
-Held a DOE security clearance (expired April, 2006)
MEMS Device Technologies
-Developed a system-on-a-chip (SoC) AM receiver.
 Designed low noise, high gain op amps & transimpedance amps.
 Developed high-Q micromechanical resonator-based filters.
Conducted extensive design reviews and approvals.
Worked with packaging, failure analysis, and testing engineers.
Collected engineering data using state-of-the-art equipment.
 Created a discrete receiver prototype with off-the-shelf electronics.
 Took MEMS Advanced Design Short Course, Sub-Micron CMOS,
Failure Analysis, Intensive Russian Course.
Photonic Microsystems
 Designed carbon nanotube optical devices (internally published).
 Implemented an automated system for quantum cascade laser testing.
IMRA America Inc. – Co-op student
 Designed, tested, and assembled optical fiber amplifier systems.
 Designed custom tooling for manufacturing
Albuquerque, NM
1/03 – 4/05
Ann Arbor, MI
1/02 – 9/02
Education:
Oakland University – MSEE – 3.9 GPA
 Microprocessor-Based Control Systems
Created a solar battery charger system with a high-efficiency boost
converter utilizing a synchronous rectifier and data logger.
 Digital Signal Processing
Created a wireless acceleration data logger and real-time analysis tool
integrated into a tennis racket handle.
 Microprocessor-Based System Design
Created a park assist system and adaptive headlamp system.
 Automotive Mechatronics
Created a sonar-controlled motor control system.
 Optimal Control Theory, Instrumentation and Measurement
Rochester, MI
12/07
Kettering University – BSEE – Summa Cum Laude (97.4/100)
 Senior Thesis: Integrated MEMS Single Chip AM Radio Receiver
Earned “Pass with Distinction” honors.
 Digital Controls, Electronics II, DSP, Microcomputers, Materials science,
Semiconductor Devices, Written and Oral Comm II.
 Developed hands-free activated, 6 W, 0.5 lb, head-mounted light system.
 Created a DSP-based guitar chord recognition system.
Flint, MI
12/05
Hochschule Reutlingen – Study abroad program
 Integrated Circuit Processing, Advanced Computer Networks,
Electromagnetic Vave Propagation, German History and Culture.
Publications: 
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Reutlingen, Germany
Fall 2004
Cost Effectiveness of Small Hybrid Electric Cars
Effect of Magnetic Field Diffusion on the Time Response of CVT’s
Modeling of Magnetic Field Diffusion Phenomena in a CVT
Modeling of Capacitive and Electromagnetic Field Shielding Effects in a CVT
9/06
9/06
10/05
10/05
Other Activities:
 Member of the Board of Governors for the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society (with biannual meetings)
 Also a member of IEEE Communications, Signal Processing, and Control Systems societies.
 Speaks English (native), French, and German, learning Spanish, Russian, and Arabic.
 Electronics hobbyist – builds guitar amplifiers, signal processors, other circuits.
 Travel (25 countries), thespian, musician (guitar, drums), dance, marksmanship.
Technical Background:
CAN systems – CANoe, CANalyzer, EDT2, Starscan, bench tests, vehicle tests, programming at chip level.
IC design – NMOS op amps, oscillators, RF circuit design, Altium, P-CAD, OrCAD PSpice, Multisim.
Circuit design – Digital control systems, mixed signal circuits with analog and digital ground planes, power
supplies, active filters, power amplifiers, rail-to-rail analog design, synchronous sequential networks.
Microprocessor Experience – Motorola 8-bit 68HC11 and 68HC9S12, Atmel 8-bit ATTINY series and
ATMEGA series, Microchip Oopic, Microchip 16-bit PIC series and DSPIC series. Used several C compilers
including Codevision AVR, and Keil. Designed systems using UART, USART, SPI, TWI, I2C, Parallel, RS232, PROFIBUS, plastic optical fiber, wireless infrared, and wireless 900 MHz communications.
Signal processing – tone recognition, image tracking, digital control systems, temperature controllers.
Electronics testing – wafer-level device characterization, switching speed testing, IC failure analysis.
Electronics fabrication – PECVD, reactive-gas sputtering control, high-power RF generator testing.
Circuits – 9 years experience soldering, breadboarding, desoldering, troubleshooting, incl. surface mount.
Mechanical – AutoCAD, IDEAS, micromechanical design, Solid Edge.
Optical design – Code V, RayCAD, Zemax, optomechanical design for ultrafast lasers (100 fs – 20 ns),
designed an Argon purged collimator for plasma monitoring, optical vacuum feedthroughs.
Reliability – DFMEA, worse case circuit analysis, thermal compensation design, Statistical Process Control.
Computer skills – Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, Publisher, Outlook, Lotus Notes, Java, C, assembly code,
Visual Studio .NET 2003, Visual Basic, VBA, Labview, Matlab, Simulink, HTML, Dreamweaver, computer
networks, USB interface design.
Specialized skills – FIB, SEM, ESEM, wire bonding, probe station, finite element analysis software, Ansoft
Maxwell, Monte Carlo simulations, strong mathematical proficiency, strong research & development skills.