CV
I'm Hao-Yen Tang, co-founder and CTO of UltraSense Systems, where I run chip, firmware, algorithm, and system engineering. I work on the same problem from both ends: the physics of a piezoelectric transducer, and the mixed-signal circuit that has to read it for microamps in a car door at minus forty degrees.
Before UltraSense I was a staff IC designer at TDK-InvenSense, where I was chip lead across several generations of the UltraPrint ultrasonic fingerprint sensor family. I did my PhD at UC Berkeley in Bernhard Boser's group, where the fingerprint sensor-on-a-chip I built became the prototype for that product line and won the 2016 ISSCC best paper award.
Over the past year I have put AI agents to work across my company's engineering — chip design, firmware, test, documentation — and learned what it takes for a team to trust what they produce. Through Ponchi AI, I develop Spec-to-Real AI services that connect specifications and designs to chips, boards, and physical objects. Alongside that product work, I help engineering teams build agent workflows and train the people who run them.
EXPERIENCE
Co-founder, CTO and VP Engineering, UltraSense Systems
Founded the company to commercialise an ultrasound sensor SoC that turns an ordinary surface into a touch interface. I run engineering: silicon, firmware and software, sensing algorithms, sensor and module design, mechanical, and the R&D that feeds them.
2018–present
Staff IC Designer, TDK-InvenSense
Led a multi-disciplinary system team for the next-generation ultrasonic fingerprint sensor: bring-up, sensor calibration, and operation. Coordinated acoustics, MEMS, CMOS, firmware, and software into one solution.
2017–2018
Senior IC Designer, TDK-InvenSense
Core analog IC designer for the ultrasonic fingerprint sensor product.
2016–2017
Graduate Student Researcher, University of California, Berkeley
Bernhard Boser's group. Three ISSCC chips: an in-air ultrasonic gesture recogniser that became the prototype for Chirp Microsystems, a battery-powered handheld ultrasound imager, and the PMUT fingerprint sensor-on-a-chip that became a commercial product line.
2012–2016
EDUCATION
Ph.D., Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
University of California, Berkeley · Bernhard Boser's group. Thesis work on piezoelectric micromachined ultrasonic transducers and the integrated circuits that drive and read them, culminating in a 3-D ultrasonic fingerprint sensor-on-a-chip.
2012–2016
B.S., Electrical Engineering
National Taiwan University
2007–2011
AWARDS
Lewis Winner Award for Outstanding Paper
IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference · for “3D Ultrasonic Fingerprint Sensor-on-a-Chip”
2016
Predoctoral Achievement Award
IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society
2015
Outstanding Student Paper Award
IEEE International Conference on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems
2017
SILICON
Piezoelectric micromachined ultrasonic transducers built monolithically on CMOS: the sensor, its analog front end, and an MCU on one die. The imaging chain reads a fingerprint through glass and metal by transmit beamforming and pulse-echo timing.
Chip lead, multiple generations · mixed-signal front end, high-voltage pulser, system bring-up
An ultrasound touch and force controller that turns an ordinary surface into a button. Sensor, analog front end, MCU, and the sensor-fusion algorithm all live on one chip, so a button can be placed behind metal with no hole and no moving part.
Chip lead · architecture, mixed-signal front end, high-voltage pulser, on-chip sensing algorithm
A multi-modal human-machine-interface SoC: capacitive touch, ultrasound touch and slider, and piezoelectric force sensing, fused on-chip. One part replaces the controller, the discrete force front ends, and the glue between them.
Chip lead · architecture, mixed-signal front end, high-voltage drive, sensor fusion
A controller that keeps a camera lens clear by driving it ultrasonically. One chip carries the power conversion from the vehicle battery, the piezo driver, an on-chip Hall-effect current sensor that tracks the transducer's resonance, and the digital control.
Chip lead · architecture, piezo driver, on-chip current sensing
A time-of-flight rangefinder on a chip, small enough and low-power enough to sit in a consumer device. Precision frequency demodulation and low-jitter time measurement are what make a centimetre-scale echo readable at microwatt power.
Analog designer, prototype and first production generation · high-voltage pulser, PLL and frequency demodulation, mixer and filter design
The thesis chip. A PMUT array bonded to CMOS that images a fingerprint in three dimensions, including the ridge structure below the skin surface. It became the prototype for a commercial fingerprint sensor product line.
Chip lead and inventor · array and circuit co-design, high-voltage pulser, beamforming
A handheld, battery-powered ultrasound imager demonstrated at ISSCC. The interesting part is the drive side: getting enough voltage into a discrete piezo element from a battery, efficiently enough that the whole instrument runs at milliwatts.
Chip lead · high-voltage drive, integrated charge pump
A millimetre-scale implant that records neural activity and is powered and read out by ultrasound through tissue, with no battery and no wire. I built the ASIC the prototype used; the work went on to seed iota Biosciences.
ASIC provider · ASIC design, ultrasound wireless power transfer
A DC-DC converter that starts up from 50 mV with no battery and no external kick, turning the few tens of millivolts a thermoelectric generator produces into a usable supply rail. My first silicon, and still my second most-cited paper.
Chip lead · converter architecture, startup circuit
A large-area ultrasonic fingerprint sensor built on a thin-film transistor backplane with a piezoelectric polymer film, driven by a companion ASIC.
Analog designer · high-voltage drive, transmit beamforming