Taif Syed

iPhone Senior Touch Hardware/Architect Engineer

Summary
Accumulated 4.5 years of experience working with the Apple iPhone Display/Touch HW Team. Co-owner of
9 patents filed with the US Patents office as part of iPhone/iPod research and development. Areas of patents
include: hybrid technique of capacitive-based sensing, reducing display to touch cross-talk, charge sharing
in displays to reduce power consumption, overvoltage protection, brightness control in displays and TFT
sheet resistance measurement technique. Most recent delivery includes the successful production of iPhone
5s touch chipset, and future sensing technology research. Direct contribution includes: 1) analog circuit
design to emulate the Analog Front End (AFE) of iPhone Touch ASICs 2) analog circuit design to prototype
future sensing technology 3) analysis, simulation, characterization and correlation of touch panel architecture,
including its second-order effects 4) display/touch power supply architecture, display/touch ASIC simulation
reviews, specification reviews and display backlight driver specification, bring-up and validation Experienced
in circuit characterization, simulation and failure analysis of Display/Touch ASICs Experience in designing
flexible PCB as the main interface between the SoC and iPhone/iPod Display/Touch subsystem Performed
statistical data analysis to ensure design is within specification across Process/Voltage/Temperature (PVT) and
other random variability Main goals are to expand to on the knowledge acquired from Apple iPhone Display
team and apply the knowledge on relevant fields of electrical engineering as part of a challenging and dynamic
team. Specialties: analog circuit design, analog front end emulation, ASIC specification, power management
IC architecture, mixed-signal IC architecture analysis and characterization, laboratory experimentation, C/C++
coding, power analysis, performing failure analysis at both chip-level and system level

Experience
Display/Touch Hardware Engineer at Apple Inc.
May 2011 - Present (4 years)
Led the prototype board design for future sensing technology from board-level architecture to bring-up. Due
to the highly sensitive nature of the technology, rigorous analysis/simulation was conducted for the analog
front end circuitry, input offset cancelation and analog power supply noise decoupling. Performed closedloop analysis to ensure that the stability and gain error requirements of the sensing amplifier configurations
are being met Performed stability analysis on the power supplies to select the correct decoupling capacitors
and by-pass capacitors and at the same time obtain the best power supply noise rejection to the analog
circuitry. Analyzed the trade-off between capacitors amongst parameters such as capacitance value, voltage
de-rating, ESR requirements, ESL requirements and physical size Analyzed the major sources of noise,
such as thermal noise, inherent operational amplifier noise (commonly referred to as flicker noise or 1/f
noise), and the noise gain due to the overall circuit configuration. Analyzed, simulated and eliminated offset
due to stray capacitance at amplifier input using offset cancelation circuitry. In this design, the challenge was
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to match both the phase and magnitude of the offset due to the complex nature of the offset current going
through the stray capacitance. Emulated the analog front end (AFE) design of one of the Touch ASICs
using various operational amplifier configurations and analog switches. Performed second-order analysis
incorporating parameters such as analog switch on resistance, switch off capacitance, amplifier input referred
noise, amplifier finite gain bandwidth product and amplifier input referred DC offset Performed a full
system-level bring-up of the entire emulation system which included the AFE, FPGA, micro-controller and
touch FW Actively involved in design, architecture, bring-up and characterization of future touch ASICs.
iPhone Display Engineering Intern at Apple Inc.
September 2010 - December 2010 (4 months)
Perform power measurements to break down power consumption in different areas of the iPhone Display
Driver IC Research and analyze various options to reduce power consumption of the iPhone Display on
the panel side of the module by consulting with third party vendors' Field Application Engineers (FAEs),
performing circuit analysis and simulations Debugged parts of the iPhone Display Driver IC to understand
the root cause behind extra power dissipation in a specific area and suggested a recommendation to solve the
issue Analyzed various circuits on the iPhone Display panel to break down the total power consumption of
the display to track each individual sources of power consumption Assisted senior engineers in debugging
critical display issues and compiled the data collected concisely in report Assist iPhone Display Electrical
Engineering Team Lead and other full time engineers in debugging and proposing solutions to problems
associated with the iPhone Display. This act involves extensive usage of electrical engineering tools such
as TekTronix Oscilloscope, Digital Multimeters, LabView Application, MATLAB for writing scripts, and
many other commonly used hardware equipments
iPhone Display Engineering Intern at Apple Inc.
January 2010 - April 2010 (4 months)
Conducted experiments on micrometer range transistors associated with iPhone Displays and established
correlation between measured panel performance and simulated panel performance Simulated iPhone/iPod
display panels by using HSPICE in order establish correlation between measured results from real TFTs and
simulation Performed timing analysis on various Analog and Digital driver ICs to optimize performance and
detect limitations Obtained a thorough understanding of how Thin-Film Transistors (TFTs) are implemented
in mobile LCD panels and how TFTs respond in accordance with the signals from the display driver IC
Optimized electrical panel performance by sweeping various panel parameters Analyzed various important
converter circuits such as Charge-Pump, Buck Converter, Linear Drop-Out (LDO) and Boost Converter
Gained valuable hands-on experience from frequent exposure to scientific and engineering equipments
including Agilent Logic Analyzer, TekTronix Oscilloscope, power measurements and noise analysis.
1 recommendation available upon request
iPhone Display Engineering Intern at Apple Inc.
May 2009 - August 2009 (4 months)

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Implemented various image dithering algorithms to be implemented in a wide variety of Apple mobile
displays such as Macbook Pro, Macbook, and iPhone Rigorously measured power and noise on iPhone
displays to ensure specifications are being met
2 recommendations available upon request

Patents
Backlight calibration and control
United States Patent 8,907,935 Issued December 9, 2014
Inventors: Taif S., Daniel V., Dave D., Ulrich Barnhoefer, Madhav Duggineni
Framework for display brightness control and visual experience
United States Patent Application 13620140
Inventors: Taif S., Daniel V., Ulrich B., Dave D., Madhav Duggineni
A system and method calibrating operational characteristics of a device.
Backlight calibration and control
United States Patent 8,907,935 Issued December 9, 2014
Inventors: Taif S., Daniel V., Dave D., Ulrich Barnhoefer, Madhav Duggineni

Skills & Expertise

Simulations
Hardware Architecture
Signal Integrity
FPGA
Debugging
Analog
Engineering Management
ASIC
IC
SoC
Digital Signal Processors
PCB design
Goal Oriented
OS X
Failure Analysis
Power Management
Electrical Engineering
Matlab
Labview
Bluetooth
Hardware
Embedded Linux
iPhone
LCD
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Perl
Testing
Xcode
Software Engineering
Analysis
USB
VHDL
Mac OS X Server
Mixed Signal
Objective-C
Embedded Systems
Perforce
C++
Embedded Software
Mobile Devices
Semiconductors
ARM
Consumer Electronics
C
Linux
AppleScript
Computer Architecture
Verilog
Cocoa
Product Management
Device Drivers

Education
University of Waterloo
Bachelors, Electrical Engineering, 2006 - 2011
1 recommendation available upon request

Honors and Awards

Hydro One scholarship given to students with outstanding achievements in the field of Power Systems,
University of Waterloo, July 2010 Recipient of World Association for Cooperative Education (WACE) Work
Integrated Learning (WIL) Student Achievement Award on behalf of the University of Waterloo for achieving
an Outstanding internship at Apple Inc., University of Waterloo, June 2010 Featured in an article in The
Chronicle of Higher Education as a model co-op student on behalf of the University of Waterloo for achieving
the most Outstanding work-term experience outside of Canada, June 2010 Best intern project in the Apple
Mobile Display Department, Apple Inc., May 2009

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Taif Syed
iPhone Senior Touch Hardware/Architect Engineer

4 people have recommended Taif

"Taif had been working for the display team at 3 different occasions in the past couple years. He was always
fast responsive, energetic and can provide efficient ways to solve electrical issues we have faced at different
phases of the development with unparalleled work ethic. Taif has been responsible for LCD panel validations,
failure analysis of electrical issues and working with vendors on critical data collections. With our aggressive
schedules and many different vendor bring-ups, having someone like Taif who can always provide data on a
dime and give sound recommendations is super helpful."
Mark C., EPM, iPods and iPhones Product Development, Apple, managed Taif indirectly at Apple Inc.
"Taif has very positive attitude towards his job and his work ethics were very impressive. He had significant
tangible contribution in the development of iPhone 4 Retina display. He was an important and integral part of
the team."
Mike D., Display Engineer, Apple Inc., worked directly with Taif at Apple Inc.
"During Taif's intern at Apple iPhone display engineering team, I was very impressed by his dillegence,
critical-thinking, and positive attitude towards the job. He helped our team to conduct critical EE
characterization and often proposed new ideas based on his hands-on experience and thinking. Taif is a
reliable engineer."
Zhibing G., Senior Display Engineer, Apple Inc., managed Taif indirectly at Apple Inc.
"Taif is beyond a doubt one of the most diligent and hardest working individuals I have ever met. His
dedication to his studies is unparalleled. He is at the same time always energetic and has quite the amazing
personality and is never afraid to tell you what you need to hear. He is trustworthy and his word is always
kept no matter what. He takes immediate initiative on all tasks and completes them far before they are due,
and is consistently one of the first to complete projects and assignments. It has been quite the honour to
witness Taif's dedication and commitment as he has always selflessly mentored and motivated those around
him at all times."
Basel S., Student, Class Representative, University of Waterloo, studied with Taif at University of
Waterloo

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Contact Taif on LinkedIn

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