Chris Pruett

Chris Pruett has over 25 years of experience in the technology industry. Chris started their career at Seagate Technology as a firmware engineer, where they developed firmware for SCSI and Fibre Channel hard drives and designed algorithms for performance optimization. Chris also worked as a staff engineer, ASIC design, developing servo-control ASICs for hard disk drives.

Chris then joined Chiaro Networks as a staff engineer, ASIC design, where they developed ASICs and FPGAs for the core IP router product. Chris designed and implemented an optical switch-fabric control ASIC, which was fully functional in the first silicon and did not require any turn.

After that, Chris worked at Seagate Technology again as a senior engineer, ASIC design. Their responsibilities included verifying and designing logic for hard disk drive SOC ASICs and implementing directed verification for SAS and Fibre Channel interfaces.

Chris then moved to InPhase Technologies as an FPGA/ASIC design engineer, where they worked on the InPhase Tapestry holographic WORM drive. Chris designed and implemented FPGAs for the drive and also worked on the drive controller firmware.

Chris later joined Western Digital as a senior staff firmware engineer, where they developed drive controller firmware for SAS hard drives. Chris also architected and implemented firmware support for a Shingled Write drive and designed algorithms for background tasks such as defragmentation and garbage collection.

At Micron Technology, Chris worked as an ASIC design engineer, where they contributed to the overall ASIC verification architecture and owned verification of the ASIC's SAS interface. Chris used UVM in System Verilog for verification and created sequences for testing command automation logic.

Chris then joined Akonia Holographics, LLC as a senior firmware/FPGA engineer, where they developed holographic data storage concepts. Chris implemented image processing algorithms from Matlab prototype to FPGA implementation and also designed and debugged firmware and related utility software.

Currently, Chris is working at Burlywood Tech as a Sr. Principal Engineer. Chris has helped define Burlywood's TrueFlash system architecture and has been involved in the design and implementation of various storage controller flash interfaces using Ultrascale+ Xilinx FPGAs. Chris has also created a UVM-based, random-directed verification environment for all Burlywood FPGAs.

Chris Pruett attended Oklahoma State University from 1988 to 1992, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering. Chris then continued their education at the same university from 1995 to 1998, obtaining a Master of Science degree in the same field.