Pete Wild: Electronic Product Development Experience

Acorn Computers was a well known British computer company developing several innovative products including the BBC Micro and the original architecture for the ARM processor. It spawned many start-up businesses in Cambridge.

My first company, Wild Vision, produced add on hardware for the Acorn range of computers. From 1986 to 1999 I worked on many collaborative technology and marketing projects with Acorn. Most notably, we developed the MPEG decoder card used in Acorn's first Set Top Boxes for the Cambridge Trial; one of the first public tests of IPTV and Video On Demand in 1993. Wild Vision's technology was sold to Acorn in 1996.

ANT was founded in 1993 and headquartered in Cambridge, United Kingdom with sales operations around the world. ANT develops an open standards, flexible application & middleware platform for a wide range of TV products.

As COO at Tematic I managed the development of a STB software stack for Pace based on a port of the Ant browser to RISC OS. In earlier days, Wild Vision manufactured network cards for Ant for use with Acorn Computers.

Applied Photophysics Ltd. (APL) has firmly established itself as a global developer and manufacturer of high quality, high performance, modern spectrometers for the study of structural, thermodynamic and kinetic properties of a wide range of samples with particular focus on proteins and other bio-macromolecules.

At Wild Vision I designed a high performance data acquisition card (ADC1208) which for many years, we supplied to Applied Photophysics for use in their scientific instruments.

ARM Holdings is the world's leading semiconductor intellectual property (IP) supplier and as such is at the heart of the development of digital electronic products. Founded in 1990 and head quartered in Cambridge, UK, ARM employs over 2,000 people. The ARM business model involves the designing and licensing of IP rather than the manufacturing and selling of actual semiconductor chips. Over 20 billion ARM based chips have been shipped to date.

I have been involved in developing numerous projects based on ARM technology involving both hardware and software integration. Starting with the first ever commercial Arm processors, used by Acorn computers and including later innovations such as ARM6, Arm7 and StrongArm. Subsequently, I have worked with several SOC ARM based devices from Conexant, Cirrus and Intel used in STBs and embedded systems.

ART was a divison of Acorn Computers set up in 1995 to license Acorn IPR and provide supporting engineering services to clients.

ART purchased Wild Vision's IPR assets in 1996. I worked for ART on a number of consultancy projects including the development of an STB for Curtis Mathes and the design of a Digital Television demonstrator based on the Teralogic TL750 device.

BCi is Europe's leading IPTV and Video on Demand (VoD) systems integrator, specialising in the design, integration and support of IPTV and VoD platforms since 1997.

BCI is Endurance Technologies Partner in System Integration projects. I have been involved with BCI in the testing of STB deployments.

Chiang Mai University (CMU), a main government university in northern Thailand, has established a college called College of Arts, Media and Technology (CAMT). CAMT focuses on human resource development and innovation in ICT for tourism, handicraft and software industries in Northern Thailand. CAMT is aiming at offering undergraduate programs in software engineering, animation, e-tourism and handicraft design.

Through Endurance Technology (Thailand) Co Ltd we developed a multimedia website for CAMT as part of the Handmade Chiang Mai project

Castle Technology started as a 3rd Party developer of hardware and Software for the Acorn Computers platform. In 1998 it acquired the rights to manufacture the Acorn RISC PC and subsequently acquired the IPR in Acorn's operating system, RISC OS. Castle went on to develop and market a number of products based on this technology. Castle is now a holding company for the RISC OS IPR, which is developed by RISC OS Open Ltd.

Through my company Wild Vision we co-developed and manufactured a number of add on interface cards for Castle's Acorn market, e.g. SCSI and network cards. I subsequently developed products for Castle including Kinetic, a processor card for the RISC PC with a StrongARM processor and onboard SDRAM. The design featured bus and SDRAM controllers implemented in FPGAs and designed in Verilog. I also designed an embedded single board computer card based on the Cirrus Logic ARM7500FE SOC with ARM7 processor.

In 2003 I provided consultancy services to Castle regarding the purchase of RISC OS from Pace Micro and the acquisition of Tematic Ltd. My current company, Pattotek Ltd, invested in Castle and I became a director, a position which I retain. As COO of Tematic I was responsible for IPTV STB development projects for Pace Micro using RISC OS.

Celestica Inc. is a multinational electronics manufacturing services (EMS) company headquartered in Toronto, Canada. Celestica's global manufacturing network comprises more than 40 locations in 11 countries in the Americas, Europe and Asia, supplying a wide variety of leading OEMs (original equipment manufacturers). In addition to manufacturing, the company's global services include design and engineering, systems assembly, fulfillment, after-market services and supply chain managed services.

D2D (Design to Distribution) formerly ICL and now part of Celestica, were Acorn's manufacturing partner for Set Top Boxes (STB). I worked with D2D on a number of design for manufacture issues in the design of Acorn (Online Media) STBs, as well as conformance testing for FCC/CE. My company, Wild Vision also manufactured network cards that were supplied to D2D for inclusion in Acorn STBs

Cirrus Logic, Inc. is a premier supplier of high-precision analog and digital signal processing components for audio and energy markets. Founded in 1984, Cirrus Logic excels at developing complex chip designs where feature integration and innovation is a premium.

Cirrus Logic designed the ARM7500FE, a fully integrated SOC with onboard DRAM, Video and I/O controllers and various peripheral devices. I developed several Set Top Box STB and embedded single board computer designs based on the ARM7500FE for different clients, some in partnership with Cirrus.

Computer Concepts (now part of Xara Group - owned by Magiz AG) is a UK-based software company founded in 1981. CC produced some of the best known software products for the Acorn computer range starting with Wordwise, the original word processor for the BBC Micro.

In 1991 Computer Concepts acquired a majority interest in my first company Wild Vision. We collaborated to develop many successful hardware products for the Acorn range of computers, as well as MPEG decoder technology for Acorn's first Set Top Box projects. Products included many multimedia solutions: a graphics card, video capture cards, scanner interfaces, laser printer interfaces (In the days before USB) audio processing cards and MPEG decoder cards. Latterly, we also developed an innovative Kiosk/digital sign-age solution. Wild Vision manufactured all of Computer Concepts' hardware products. In 1996 Computer concepts dis-continued hardware product manufacturing and Wild Vision's IPR was sold to ART (Acorn Risc Technologies).

Conexant is a privately held fabless semiconductor company located in Irvine, California, Conexant has offices and design centers worldwide, 300+ employees and a strong patent portfolio. Conexant combines a significant IP portfolio in DSP, analog and mixed signal technology to deliver silicon and software-based solutions for both audio and imaging applications.

Whilst at Tematic we worked with Pace to develop two IPTV Set Top Boxes running on Conexant ARM processor based silicon and the RISC OS operating system. The first, an MPGE2 box was deployed in significant volume IPTV deployment with Sasktel in Canada. The second was an H.264 IPTV reference platform which we promoted in partnership with Conexant and Espial, with a port of their middleware.

Curtis Mathes Corporation was a North American electronics retailer based in, Texas. It manufactured its own brand of televisions in Athens and was known for its commercials proclaiming its televisions were the "most expensive" and "darn well worth it". Curtis Mathes subsequently became Uniview and the Curtis Mathes brand has been licensed for use on badged products sold by retailers like Walmart and Kmart.

At ART (Acorn Risc Technologies) In 1997 I was responsible for developing an innovative STB that provided enhanced TV viewing capabilities, Internet access and telephony functions via the TV set. At this time it was a highly innovative product. The project was delivered in a very short timescale with barely six months from first concepts to initial production. The product was subsequently marketed by Uniview as the "Uniview 210"

Dee Van Enterprise Co., Ltd (DVE). was established in 1971 and listed on the stock market in 1988. Headquartered in Xin-Dian District of Taipei, Taiwan it has subsidiaries and affiliates in U.S., Hong Kong and China. The Company focuses on the development, production and selling of power supply and OEM manufacturing of other electronic products.

DVE was a manufacturing partner of uniView for their "uniView 310" intel x86 based Set Top Box. As a consultant for uniView, I collaborated with DVE to complete the development and NPI process for the product both at their HQ in Taiwan and factory in Shenzhen, China.

Endurance Technology is a specialist company delivering engineering solutions for embedded systems. With a wide range of experience in developing embedded products, Endurance's team of experts provide a one stop service for hardware and software development capabilities, combined with systems integration skills and project managment. Primary application areas are in Digital Television, Multi-media, Internet Solutions, Broadband Networks and Digital Signage but we have a broad knowledge of embedded solutions including in industrial, automation and automotive applications.

Since 2001 I have completed a number of consultancy projects with Endurance UK in the fields of electronic design and manufacturing consultancy and digital TV integration projects (see other clients on this page for details).

Since 2009 I have been CEO of Endurance Technology (Thailand) Co Ltd, a joint venture set up with Endurance U.K. I was responsible for setting up Endurance Technology's operation in Thailand and for negotiating with the Royal Thai Government's BOI (Board of Investment) to gain approval for a foreign owned company with investment privileges.

Espial formed in 1997 to serve the internet appliance market. It successfully established market leadership in the consumer electronics market segment working with global brands. In 2003, Espial expanded its market focus and software capabilities to address the IPTV market. It now has IPTV deployments with dozens of pay-TV operators across Asia, Europe, and North America. In 2008, Espial acquired Kasenna and in 2013, Espial acquired ANT, to add further depth to its IPTV and STB client capabilities. Espial is now a leading global supplier of digital TV and IPTV software and solutions to cable MSOs and telecommunications operators as well as Smart TV manufacturers.

In 2005 as COO of Tematic we worked in partnership with Conexant and Espial to port the Espial Evo middleware to RISC OS running on Conexant silicon to provide an H.264 IPTV STB solution and reference design.

Funai Electric Company Limited is a Japanese consumer electronics company headquartered in Daito, Osaka, Japan and founded in 1961. In the United States it, markets Funai-licensed brands including Sylvania, Emerson Radio, Magnavox, Philips, and Symphonic. Funai is also an OEM providing assembled televisions and video players/recorders to major corporations such as Sharp, Toshiba, Denon, and Funai manufactures printers for Dell and Lexmark.

I worked on the acTive 3875 STB project with Funai through Acorn's online Media Division, which subsequently became Element 14 and was then acquired by Pace Micro in 1999. I was responsible for the electronic design, down to schematic level and worked in close co-operation with Funai who designed the mechanical aspects and the PCB. This was essentially a cost down version of the acTive 2875 STB suitable for Funai to manufacture in volume. The acTive 3875 STB used a Cirrus Logic ARM7500FE SOC processor and an LSI LS64002 MPEG2 Decoder.

The Hana Group is one of South East Asia's leading independent "Electronic Manufacturing Service" (EMS) producers with facilities in Lamphun Province (in northern Thailand near Chiangmai), Ayutthaya Province, Jiaxing, China and Twinsburg, Ohio, U.S.A. with the headquarter of the Company in Bangkok, Thailand. The parent company Hana Microelectronics Public Company Limited was established in 1978 and became listed on the Securities Exchange of Thailand in February 1993.

I worked on a project with Hana in Lamphun as a consultant for a client to provide NPI (New Product Introduction) for the client's high reliability PCBA requirements.

Intel Corporation is an American multinational semiconductor chip maker corporation headquartered in Santa Clara, California. Intel is one of the world's largest and highest valued semiconductor chip makers, based on revenue.[5] It is the inventor of the x86 series of microprocessors, the processors found in most personal computers.

I have used Intel technologies in a number of projects. The uniView 310 Set Top Box was based on Intel x86 processor and motherboard chipset. I have also worked on designs using the Intel StrongARM processor (originally developed by DEC), notably the Kinetic card design for Castle technology. More recently the Castle Iyonix PC used the Intel Xscale processor to run RISC OS.

Irdeto is a world leader in Media Protection, Multiscreen and Revenue Assurance solutions for pay TV operators, OTT service providers and content owners. Irdeto offers an advanced portfolio of conditional access, rights management, multi-screen, home networking, piracy control and business intelligence services. For more than 40 years the company has been helping to evolve today's broadcast and media industries.

I have worked with Irdeto as a consultant on several projects over a number of years. These have included projects related to CAS security, anti-piracy, STB and smart card interfacing. I was contracted as solutions architect for Irdeto's CAS and middle-ware deployment with Videocon D2H in India and responsible for developing the system requirements specification. I have also been engaged by Irdeto on projects relating to hardware and electronics manufacturing.

Through Endurance Technology (Thailand) I was responsible for planning and project managing a new integration of Irdeto's middleware and CAS on a new silicon platform from ST for a Videocon D2H STB.

Online Media was a division of Acorn Computers created in 1994 to develop STBs for Video on Demand applications based on Acorn&s Technology (ARM Processors and RISC OS). Online Media developed and integrated the Technology for the "Cambridge Trial", one of the worlds first interactive TV experiments using the Cambridge Cable network, ATM networking and MPEG 1 video compression Technology

My company Wild Vision, in conjunction with Computer Concepts, developed the MPEG 1 Decoder hardware used in the STB1 for the Cambridge trial. Wild Vision also manufactured the STB 1 hardware for Online Media. Wild Vision also provided other technology consultancy and hardware solutions for various modules used in the Online Media STBs

I subsequently worked for Online Media directly as a consultant in the design of the acTiVe 2875 and AcTiVe 3875 STBs. Part way through developing the later Online Media was absorbed back into Acorn (Element 14) and subsequently sold to Pace.

Orica is an Australian multinational company and the largest provider of commercial explosives and blasting systems to the mining and infrastructure markets.

I have worked for Orica on a number of consultancy projects in the fields of electronics manufacture, and electronic design. I have also provided consultancy regarding the acquisition of an electronics manufacturing plant and assets.

Pace plc creates world leading cable, satellite, IPTV and gateway technologies, products and services for the broadcast and broadband industries.

When Pace acquired Acorn (Element 14) I continued to work for them as a consultant to complete the acTiVe3875 STB project with Funai.

In 2003 with Castle I was involved in negotiations with Pace to acquire the RISC OS IPR. Subsequently, at Tematic I secured and project managed contracts with Pace to develop new software stacks for two IPTV STBS running RISC OS on Conexant hardware. One STB was for MPEG2 and one H.264.

Established in 2003 in Newcastle upon Tyne Pattotek Ltd is my own consulting company providing consultancy services in Electronic Design and Electronic manufacturing.

Through Pattotek Ltd I have provided a number of consultancy services to clients listed elsewhere on this page.

PowerLinx, Inc. develops and manufactures audio and video cameras for the marine and consumer retail markets. The company develops, manufactures and markets products and applications that transmit voice, video, audio and data either individually or in any and all combinations over power lines, twisted-pair wires and coax in AC and DC power environments on any and all power grids.

I provided consultancy services to PowerLinx inc regarding CE approval for their powerline products and managed a technical investigation and limited testing in UK EMC testing lab.

Proton is a Taiwanese Television and consumer electronics manufacturer

Proton was a manufacturing partner for Curtis Mathes (Uniview) I was involved with them on a consultancy basis with uniview regarding manufacturing issues.

RISC OS Open Limited (ROOL) is a company formed in conjunction with Castle Technology by a team of experienced RISC OS engineers who were working with Endurance Technology and Tematic. ROOL is managing the RISC OS open source activity on behalf of Castle Technology Ltd, as a not-for-profit activity. ROOL also provides professional services developing and integrating software and solutions based on RISC OS.

As a Director of Castle I was involved in the original concepts for setting up RISC OS Open limited and in drafting the applicable licences and heads of agreement to allow RISC OS to be distributed under a open source licence by RISC OS Ltd. My Consultancy company Pattotek Ltd has an equity interest in RISC OS Open Ltd.

STMicroelectronics is a French-Italian multinational electronics and semiconductor manufacturer headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. It is Europe's largest semiconductor chip maker based on revenue. ST is uniquely placed to supply every IC used in home media and application platforms, ranging from simple broadcast set-top boxes to sophisticated media gateways/servers.

I have worked with ST technologies on projects for Videocon D2H. With Irdeto I was solutions architect responsible for specifying a STB system solution using the STi5202 in a DVBS2/MPEG 4 STB. With Endurance Technology (Thailand) I project managed the porting of a complete Irdeto CAS and middleware software stack to an STi5211 based STB. On both projects I worked closely with ST engineers based in Greater Noida, India.

Tematic was formed by a group of engineers who formerly worked for Pace's IPTV division in Cambridge and was backed by private investors. The team's initial project was developement of the Iyonix PC for Castle technology. Subsequently, Tematic was absorbed into Castle Technolgy as part of a restructuring for a joint venture and further investment, which also involved Castle acquiring RISC OS from Pace.

I joined Castle to advise on the JV with Tematic, technology transfer and acquisition of the RISC OS IPR. My Company Pattotek Ltd is an investor in Castle and I became COO responsible for the Tematic Division. At Tematic I secured two major development projects with Pace to develop RISC OS IPTV STBs using Conexant silicon. I managed the on-time and on budget delivery of these projects. We also worked with other partners on system integrations activities for these STBs for operators and to produce a technical demonstrator of an H.264 STB running the Espial middle-ware.

TeraLogic, Inc. founded in 1996 was acquired Oak Technology, then by Zoran Corporation (now owned by CSR plc - formerly Cambridge Silicon Radio). TeraLogic, Inc. developed video/audio processing hardware and software for digital home entertainment. It provides solutions for broadband digital television video, audio, and interactive data services. The company designs and develops integrated circuits (IC), platforms, and software for advanced televisions, set-top boxes, and PC-TV convergence products.

Working with ART I developed the hardware for a Digital Television demonstrator solution based on the Teralogic TL-750 graphics and video processing engine. ART produced a modified version of RISC OS which used the TL-750 to deliver it's graphics output.

Trigem is a Korean computer designer and manufacturing company. Trigem was one of the investors and manufacturers of e-machines a low cost PC brand.

Uniview acquired the rights to a Trigem developed STB based on Microsoft Windows and Intel x86 technology. I was involved in the technology transfer process as consultant, working with Trigem to resolve technical issues, such as new BIOS releases, and manufacturing issues.

uniView Technologies (Formerly Curtis Mathes) is a provider of Internet communication solutions. The company specializes in digital set top box solutions, computer telephony integration (CTI), customer service, enterprise solutions, and broadband connectivity.

Working with ART I was responsible for the development of the uniView 210 STB (See details under Curtis Mathes). Subsequently, I provided consultancy services to uniView regarding the development of a number of potential STB designs and projects.

I was also responsible for setting up production of the uniView 310 STB with manufacturing partners in Taiwan and China, as well as resolving a range of technical issues with Trigem in Korea, from whom the original uniView 310 design was acquired. I also provided technical management for the development of a simple IPTV middle-ware solution for the uniView 310.

Videocon d2h is the DTH service provided by the Videocon Group. Videocon Group is an industrial conglomerate with interests all over the world, and is an Indian multinational company. Videocon d2h offers 500 channels and services which include 28 Asli "HD" channels, 1 3D channel and 21 Active Music Services.

Working as a consultant for Irdeto developing the Videocon D2H DVB-S2 satellite platform. As solutions architect for Irdeto I was responsible for working with many stakeholders and partners to draw up the complete system requirements specification, and as part of the project management team I provided technical input to the systems integration process. The launch deployment STB was DVB-S2/MPEG4 and used an STmicro processor and demodulator with Irdeto software stack including the Irdeto CA system and Irdeto java based middleware.

Videocon Group is an industrial conglomerate with interests all over the world, and is an Indian multinational company. In India it manufactures consumer electronics and white goods, including Televisions and the Set Top Boxes for it's Videocon D2H services

Working with Endurance Technology I secured a contract to develop a software stack for a new DVB-S2 STB for Videocon D2H using an STMicro SOC single chip DVB-S" solution. I project managed the project which included integration of the Irdeto Middleware with a new HAL, integration of the Irdeto CA system and development of a new Irdeto Loader.

The project also involved solutions for production line test and personalisation of the STB as well as system testing an conformance testing of the STB in accordance with Irdeto DVT certifications.

Widevine, from Seattle USA, is a company specialising in protecting video content streamed online and was acuired by Google in 2010

At Tematic we provided consultancy services to Widevine to support the integration of their Content Protection software into RISC OS based IPTV STB software stacks for Pace used on deployments with Sasktel and Chunghwa Telecom.

Wild Vision was started in 1985, by Peter Wild. Originally producing frame grabber cards for scientific image processing applications, the company progressed into designing and manufacturing a range of other video and multimedia hardware add on cards for the Acorn range of computers. Computer Concepts (CC) acquired a majority stake in 1991 after which Wild Vision grew its manufacturing operations producing a range of hardware interface products for CC including direct scanner interfaces and direct drive laser printer interfaces. Wild Vision partnered with Acorn's Online Media to develop an MPEG 1 decoder for the Cambridge Trial or VOD services. Wild Vision also manufactured the STBs used in the trial. In 1996, CC ceased developing and manufacturing Acorn hardware, and Wild Vision's IPR was sold to Acorn Computers (ART).

I was CEO of Wild Vision for more than ten years and successfully grew the company from a zero base until it employed 15 people, with it's own manufacturing facilities. I was the driving force behind product development and responsible for over forty electronic designs in video and multimedia related products.

XAVi Technologies Corporation is established in 1997 at Taiwan and now belongs to the CHICONY Electronics business group. As a leading broadband product supplier, XAVi dedicates to developing, producing, and marketing xDSL CPE and Broadband Gateway products for delivering data, voice, video, and multimedia services for corporate, SME, SOHO and residential users.

With Endurance Technology I negotiated a contract and project managed the delivery of a feasibility study for porting the Mozilla Firefox browser onto a XAVi embedded Linux based hardware platform.