Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
Senior Researcher at Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC). Co-lead Software Technical Area in the EuroHPC DARE project, which is investing €240 million to develop RISC-V chiplets for next-generation European supercomputers. Leader of Working Group on Programming Models in ETP4HPC, the European Commission's (EC's) partner in the High-Performance Computing (HPC) Contractual Public-Private Partnership (CPPP). I received my PhD in computer architecture from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya in 2011 related to stream programming models. Prior to starting my PhD, I was Senior Software Engineer at Arm in Cambridge, UK, as technical lead for audio and video codec development and member of the small team that designed Arm NEON / Advanced SIMD. I have an BA in mathematics (1996) and MA in computer science (1997), both from the University of Cambridge.
From July to October 2015, I was engaged at Berkeley Design Technology (BDTI), Inc. in Berkeley, CA. BDTI is respected in the embedded industry as a provider of independent benchmarking and analysis. I performed the analysis for BDTI “Insider Insights on the ARM11’s Signal-Processing Capabilities” (using hardware) and “Assessing Cortex-R4 and Cortex-A8 Signal and Media Processing Performance” (using a cycle-accurate simulator). In addition to providing the technical results and analysis, I delivered a two-day training course about the ARM Architecture and Advanced SIMD to BDTI engineers.
In 2003, I founded a small consulting company, “Paul Carpenter Consulting Ltd”. My first consulting opportunity, at ARM, started June 2003, and was extended several times, ending in April 2005. I was part of the small team (<5 people) in the ARM Research Group that designed the ARM Advanced SIMD / NEON vector ISA. Advanced SIMD is a key part of the ARM architecture, mandatory in ARMv8-A and implemented in almost 50% of all mobile phones worldwide. It was first introduced in ARM Cortex-A8, in 2005, and the design has changed little as of 2016. I was author of much of the NEON software training material including the “NEON Code Examples”, RDB01-GENC-003057 (confidential).
Senior Software Engineer. Technical lead for embedded ARM MP3 Decoder (two engineers) and Microsoft Windows Media Audio Decoder (two engineers), both licensed as standard software in several ASSPs (one with >50 design wins), and used by most early portable audio players, including S3 Diamond Rio Receiver, Creative Nomad and Empeg Car. Technical lead on Dolby Digital (AC-3) decoder. Technical lead on MPEG-4 video decoder (three engineers) and development of reusable MOVE video codec components (four engineers). For all projects: feasibility study, development and performance/footprint optimization, programmer's guide (in collaboration with Technical Publications group), ongoing maintenance, training of Support Group (for first level of customer support), advanced customer support via email and phone, technical guidance/training visits for international sales teams, demonstration at annual ARM Partner Meeting (APM) in Cambridge, and accompanying sales on customer visits. Engineering lead for mass storage software segment, involving technical support to business development and analysis of performance and memory footprint. Engineer on V22bis software modem (AS404). Interactions with CPU Architecture team regarding the ARM ISA (usefulness and/or semantics of proposed instructions) and core micro-architecture (choice of multiplier, forwarding paths, etc.).