Leyre Flores

A senior Engineer with a PhD in digital design and characterization of pixel sensors for high energy physics at CERN. Experience in several large academic and industrial organisations as a member of pluri-disciplinary teams working in complex multinational projects. Supervisor of graduate level colleagues and responsible for the organisation of multiple working groups within CERN projects. Passionate about semiconductors and willing to share my enthusiasm for the industry with other CERN collaborators and stakeholders in the industry.

CERN

Senior Fellow System Engineer

August 2021 - Present 

Project summary and main objectives: 

- Digital ASIC design of monolithic active sensor miniMALTA3: I2C communication protocol design, test and physical implementation, characterisation with liberate MX of SRAM memory, integration of serialiser with Aurora 64/66 bits encoder and LVDS driver

- Commissioning of the outer barrel demonstrator of the inner tracker detector of ATLAS for HL-LHC, which will be installed in 2027

- Test of the DAQ chain with recommended firmware and software

- Development of tools to help production sites with system integration

- Setup of multi-module test benches for characterisation of readout for
further improvements on software and firmware

- Responsible for supervising students and ATLAS qualification tasks

PHD Student

April 2018 - July 2021  Geneva, Switzerland

- Digital ASIC design: RTL, synthesis, place and route and verification for rad-hard monolithic sensor Mini-Malta and new digital configuration block for Malta2 with Cadence EDA tools (genus & Innovus)

- ITkPixV1 chip characterisation of Single Event Effects

- Architecture simulations to ensure data output bandwidths

- Implementation of an emulator with two FPGAs to check digital design

- Development of new readout firmware and software for Malta2

- Test-beam and lab characterisation of Mini-Malta sensor

- Development of an analysis software used in lab and test-beams

- Instruction of students in digital design and testing

University of Glasgow

Electronics engineer

Jan 2015 - Apr 2018  Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom

- Digital verification with UVM (Universal Verification Methodology) for the CERN CMOS readout chip RD53A

- Data transmission coordinator for ATLAS ITk Pixel Upgrade

- PCB design: schematics, layout, gerbers, BOM, Pick & Place for radiation hard high-speed circuits with Altium software: LHCb vacuum feed-through and high-speed adapter boards

- FE-chip Wafer probing with Wentworth machine

- Testing (VNA, BERT, high-speed scope), simulation (ANSYS and python) and characterisation of different transmission lines: cables, flex-tapes for high-speed electrical transmission

- Organisation of a Data Transmission Workshop in Glasgow

- Writing services specification and requirements documents and TDR

STMicroelectronics

Embedded System EngineerEmbedded System Engineer

 Jun 2014 - Dec 2014, Crolles

Project Description: Development of an intelligent and autonomous wireless IPV6 network (Internet of Things, IoT)

Responsibilities and achievements:

- Conception, placement, routing, and component selection (BOM) for a PCB containing analogue and digital sensors with DesignSpark

- PCB testing

- Integrating team work with GIT

- I2C, SPI and I2S drivers development for the STM32L152RE Cortex M3 microprocessor, in order to introduce to the network the new sensors: light MEMS, humidity and a microphone, C language for Contiki OS

- Development of signal processing algorithms for sound

- Porting code from STM32F4 to STM32L152RE

GIPSA-lab

Research Internship

May 2013 - Jul 2013 Grenoble Area, France

Project: " Electrochemical noise characterisation for fuel cell analysis"

Responsibilities and achievements:

- Research into theory and physics of signal processing: Allan variance, Wavelets and Fourier Analysis

- Testing ambience influence in the electrochemical noise produced by Fuel Cells. 

- Laboratory tests which include taking measurements of voltage and current with the Fuel Cell

- Implementation in Matlab of different tests using Allan variance, Wavelet Transform and Fourier Analysis to be able to conclude results 

- Production of extensive report on findings and recommendations

University of Glasgow

Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, Engineering Physics/ Aplied Physics April 2018- August 2021

Title: "Design and characterisation of monolithic CMOS detectors for high energy particle physics and SEU radiation tests for ATLAS Inner Tracker Upgrade readout chip"

Universidad Pública de Navarra 

2009-2014

Ingeniería de Telecomunicación /Computer Systems Networking, Electronics, Signal Treatment and Telecommunications

Grenoble INP - UGA

Master en SICOM 2012-2013