Our Team
Based in Central Pennsylvania, Esterline Research and Design is an electrical engineering design firm with an emphasis in the frequency control industry. Our expertise comes from the design and testing of high precision crystal oscillators, for military and commercial applications. Our team has a combined 70 years experience in every facet of oscillator design and testing. The team's primary research interests are the improvement of embedded time bases, including all aspects of design, manufacture, and test. As a result, our team provides results for difficult problems that require unique, robust solutions with superior quality and reliability.
John C. Esterline, M. Eng. E.E. CEO
Personal Objective
Research interests focus on frequency control. Improvement of time base environmental performance, such as temperature stability, thermal hysteresis, acceleration sensitivity, aging, etc.
Education
Pennsylvania State University Middletown, PA (2011)
Masters of Engineering in Electrical Engineering
Thesis: G-Compensated Crystal Oscillator
Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering (2007)
Senior Project: Automated Final Test System for Crystal Oscillators
Electronic Institutes Middletown, PA (1999)
Associates degree in Computer and Engineering Technology
Patents / Patent Applications
Name: Crystal oscillator with reduced acceleration sensitivity
Publication #: US8188800 B2
Publication Date: May 29, 2012
Description: Reduction of acceleration sensitivity of crystal oscillator through the use of multiple crystals to passively compensate for the acceleration sensitivity.
Name: Crystal oscillator with reduced acceleration sensitivity
Publication #: US8525607 B2
Publication Date: September 3, 2013
Description: Expanded claim set for reduction of acceleration sensitivity of crystal oscillator through the use of multiple crystals to passively compensate for the acceleration sensitivity.
Name: Crystal oscillator with reduced acceleration sensitivity
Application #: PCT/US2009/063422
Publication Date: May 14, 2010
Description: European Application for reduction of acceleration sensitivity of crystal oscillator through the use of multiple crystals to passively compensate for the acceleration sensitivity.
Name: Neural network frequency control
Application #: US 13/570,563
Publication Date: February 13, 2013
Description: Application for compensation of crystal oscillator environmental effects including temperature, trim effect, etc.
Name: Neural network frequency control
Application #: PCT/US2012/050164
Publication Date: March 28, 2013
Description: European application for compensation of crystal oscillator environmental effects including temperature, trim effect, etc.
Publications
Trim Effect Compensation Using an Artificial Neural Network
European Frequency and Time Forum & International Frequency Control Symposium (EFTF/IFC), 2013 Joint
Temperature Compensation of Crystal Oscillators Using an Artificial Neural Network
Frequency Control Symposium (FCS), 2012 IEEE International
Crystal Oscillators: History, Parameters, and Types
Microwave Product Digest, July 2009
Phase Noise: Theory Versus Practicality
Microwave Journal, April 2008
Presentations
Trim Effect Compensation Using an Artificial Neural Network
European Frequency and Time Forum & International Frequency Control Symposium (EFTF/IFC), 2013 Joint
Compensation of Crystal Oscillators Using ANN
Microwave Theory & Techniques (MTT) Society of the IEEE Long Island Section
February 2013
Temperature Compensation of Crystal Oscillators Using an Artificial Neural Network
Frequency Control Symposium (FCS), 2012 IEEE International
May 2012
Employment
Chief Executive Officer
Esterline Research and Design, Shiremanstown PA May 2014 – Present
Consulting in the areas of:
Frequency control
RF systems
Test and automation
Ceramic substrate and package design
General microcontroller applications
Design and manufacture of high precision RF test equipment such as:
Multi-channel RF frequency counter system
Multi-channel programmable mixer/downconverter
Multi-channel low noise synthesizer
Multi-channel high precision temperature measurement system
Senior Design Engineer
Greenray Industries, Mechanicsburg PA May 2006 - April 2014
Design of precision TCXO's, OCXO's and VCXO's for commercial, military and high shock/vibration applications.
Research and Development of new oscillator compensation methods.
Interfacing with patent attorneys to create patents around new technologies.
Writing and publishing technical articles related to oscillators.
Lecturing at conferences and customer locations on oscillators and new patented technologies.
Ceramic package design for commercial, military, and high shock/vibration applications.
Writing and implementing ATPs and QTPs for various oscillator designs.
Perform failure analysis and travel to customer sites to resolve issues in the field.
Developing and implementing of DOEs to resolve issue and improve reliability and performance of various oscillators.
Design and implementation of production environmental test systems for TCXOs, OCXOs, VCXOs, and ANNCXOs.
Senior Troubleshooting Technician
CTS Reeves October 1999 - August 2002
Managed a staff of 3 assemblers, and 2 technicians for a military grade OCXO.
Responsible for making sure line output met production needs of the program.
Oversaw all aspects of the production from assembly, test, aging, environmental screening, and packaging.
Aided other production lines in test and troubleshooting of product to ensure on-time delivery of a broad range of TCXO, OCXO, and VCXO products.
Alan W. Snavely, COO
Personal Objective
To develop new techniques to improve the speed and precision of frequency and time measurements and to employ those new techniques in the form of test hardware as either stand-alone equipment for Engineering testing or embedded in systems for production testing.
Education
Electronic Institutes Highspire, PA (1974)
Associates in Electrical Engineering Technology
Patents
Co-inventor on a provisional patent relating to Oscillator Technology filed February 2014.
Employment
Chief Operations Officer
Esterline Research and Design,Shiremanstown, PA, May 2014 – Present
Consulting in the areas of:
Frequency control
RF systems
Test and automation
Ceramic substrate and package design
General microcontroller applications
Design and manufacture of high precision RF test equipment such as:
Multi-channel RF frequency counter system
Multi-channel programmable mixer/downconverter
Multi-channel low noise synthesizer
Multi-channel high precision temperature measurement system
Senior Design Engineer
Greenray Industries, Mechanicsburg PA June 2003 – April 2014
Design, construction, and maintenance of a wide variety of automated test systems for the validation of parametric performance of Greenray oscillators including:Temperature Test Systems for oscillator frequency vesus temperature compliance testing. Temperature Test Systems for calibration of TCXO designs incorporating both resistor-thermistor networks as well as multi-order polynomial ASIC's.Test Systems to demonstrate frequency aging compliance. Automated turn hunt systems for OCXO's.
Design of precision TCXO's, OCXO's and VCXO's for commercial, military and high shock/vibration applications.
Ceramic package design for commercial, military, and high shock and vibration applications.
Technical writer for ATP's and QTP's needed for military-grade oscillators.
Perform failure analysis and travel to customer sites to resolve issues in the field.
Performed numerous DOE’s and generated numerous internal technical reports detailing the results of these experiments.
Engineering Manager
CTS Corp., CTS Frequency Control Products, Carlisle PA October 1997 – June 2003
Managed a staff of five engineers and one technician in the Discrete Oscillator Engineering Department. This department was responsible for producing the OCXO and TCXO designs primarily used in telecom, military, and test equipment applications.
Responsibilities included scheduling and timeline/project planning activities for subordinates as well as actual test system and oscillator design activity as needed.
Primary Design Engineer for military-grade oscillator designs and supporting testing hardware and software.
Design Engineer
Reeves Hoffman Division, Carlisle PA October 1985 – October 1997
Test System design (aging and temperature test systems). Other responsibilities included the design of TCXO's incorporating resistor-thermistor networks as well as OCXO's, and VCXO's for both commercial and military applications.
Terry L. Hitt, CSDO
Personal Objective
To develop state of the art microcontroller firmware to meet the needs of any application, with a focus in frequency control and test and automation.
Employment
Chief Software Development Officer
Esterline Research and Design May 2014 – Present
Consulting in the areas of:
Frequency control
RF systems
Test and automation
Ceramic substrate and package design
General microcontroller applications
Design and manufacture of high precision RF test equipment such as:
Multi-channel RF frequency counter system
Multi-channel programmable mixer/downconverter
Multi-channel low noise synthesizer
Multi-channel high precision temperature measurement system
Systems Engineer
Greenray Industries, Mechanicsburg PA Oct 1997 – April 2014
Design, construction, and maintenance of a wide variety of automated test systems for the validation of parametric performance of Greenray oscillators:
Temperature Test Systems for oscillator frequency verses temperature compliance testing.
Temperature Test Systems for calibration of TCXO designs incorporating resistor-thermistor networks.
Test Systems to demonstrate frequency aging compliance.
Automated crystal turn hunt systems for OCXO's
Micro-computer programming and implementation for a variety of applications:
In-line functionality testers for Contract Manufacturers to test a variety of wire-bonded and flip-chip assemblies built for Greenray.
Assembly language programming of various single-core and multi-core microcontrollers.
Designed and built a monitoring system with alarms and graphical visual display to alert personnel of elevated CO2 levels and exposure limits.
Developed the firmware for a vibration-compensated, OCXO-disciplined TCXO.
Developed TCXO ASIC emulator for use with ANNCXO development.
Developed multi-core microcontroller firmware for the production implementation of Greenray’s patented ANN technology.
Design of precision MCXO's and DCXO’s for commercial and military programs.
Design of GPS-disciplined OCXO.
ER&D Products and Services
Esterline Research and Design aims to change the way production testing of RF systems is approached. We are designing several pieces of high end RF test gear to ease the common problems encountered in production testing of RF systems.We also offer consulting services focused on frequency control and custom micro-controller solutions.
For more information on consulting services contact us
