HP Integrity BLc3000 ISS Technology Update, Volume 9, Number 3 - Page 5

Meet the Expert-Chad Mar With more than 23 years of experience at HP/Compaq, Chad Mar has displayed a rare combination of knowledge, intellect, and leadership that exemplifies HP leadership in server technology. Currently, Chad is a Project Manager for ISS Shared Engineering Services with responsibilities that include the next generation iLO technology, systems troubleshooting, and technology investigations. But over three decades, he also has worked as a silicon fabrication manager, CMOS device designer, technical project lead, program manager, product engineering manager, and DRAM design manager. Notably, he helped to start up the ISS group and was a key program manager who helped start the ProLiant server line. Before coming to Compaq in 1987, he was a technical project design lead and program manager at Texas Instruments (TI). If that's not enough, he managed the team that developed the ASIC (applicationspecific integrated circuit) which implemented ECC memory in Compaq industrystandard servers, and he was instrumental in getting the PCI-X standard adopted by the industry (and Intel). Name: Chad Mar Title: HP Project Manager, ISS Shared Engineering Services Years at HP: 23 Ken Jansen, Chad's manager, said that Chad has a unique level of knowledge and ability that enables him to apply his expertice in a wide range of areas. For example, Chad's abilities range from working on low level design of devices to University/Degree: Kansas State University, BSEE 1970 Patents: 4 working on complex problems that affect semiconductor yield production. Semiconductor yield production is invisible to customers, but it's critical to the development of new technologies and it affects the time to market (and price) of next-generation servers. He loves a challenge Chad gets a lot of satisfaction from problem solving. He became hooked on engineering in the early 1970s when he discovered that he could solve problems, invent, and learn while make a comfortable living. Chad and his wife Alexa have been happily married for 37 years and have three grown children David, 36, Lindsay, 33, and Michael, 30. His passion spills over into his hobbies: buying stocks and real estate and building stuff. Not surprising, he does a lot of research before he makes a purchase. Last winter, he also researched and built his own HDTV antenna, which he uses to watch local HD channels from 30 miles out without an amplifier. Total cost of the antenna materials: $8. Being able to watch the Winter Olympics in HD using his home-built antenna: priceless. His favorite project shook the world When asked about his favorite projects, Chad mentioned that he was the program manager at TI who brought the first speech synthesis chip to market in 1978-the TMC0281 Speech Synthesizer a.k.a. the "Speak and Spell" chip. Ken added the Speak and Spell chip was named by IEEE Spectrum Magazine as one of the 25 chips that "shook the world," http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/processors/25-microchips-that-shook-the-world/0. Running a close second and third at HP/Compaq were Chad's involvement in developing PCI-X technology and getting ECC memory into the entire ProLiant server line. Chad credited the many talented people he worked with at TI and HP/Compaq for the success of these inventions. He believes HP leadership is by design Chad is part of HP's in-house technical staff that provides support for customer issues. He pointed out that while the industry commonly outsources manufacturing, HP creates its own ROM and CPLDs (complex programmable logic devices); has extensive firmware development teams; and internally develops ASICs such as iLO. And although HP servers use industrystandard CPUs, chipsets, and application-specific parts such as NICs, HP internally validates all of these component designs for each ProLiant model. 5