Fmr. VP, Hardware Engineering Group, Corporate R&D, Qualcomm
Ernie Ozaki is an Antenna Systems/RF/Microwave subject matter expert with extensive experience in technical management, design and development engineering, new product innovation, and design to cost engineering. He has nearly 40 years of experience in the design and development of advanced antennas and antenna system electronics for a variety of diverse applications for the aerospace, military, global SATCOM, terrestrial cellular, and automotive industries, and in new areas such as ATG (air to ground) applications for commercial jetliners and drones, vehicular communications, and antennas for biological sensors and wireless power transfer. He has working knowledge of many antenna types and technologies including broadband, multiband, and multi-beam antennas, active and passive phased arrays, dual polarized antennas, miniaturized antennas for mobile devices, and multibeam lens antennas and feed systems.
His industry experience started at Hughes Aircraft Company and TRW in the 80s and 90s, where he worked on antennas and beamforming networks for phased array radars, near field probe test facilities for qualifying the radars, adaptive antenna arrays, and decade bandwidth, multi-beam, multi-functional antennas/beamformers. He was then at Qualcomm for the next 22 plus years before retiring in 2017. There, he worked on external and internal antenna solutions for the early mobile handsets, new industry standard test and certification methodologies, and procedures for high volume factory test and phone calibration. As the handset designs morphed towards smaller and ultra-thin form factors, he worked on compact antenna solutions for thin smartphones and smartwatches, and in the development of new features such as tunable antennas and multi-antenna solutions for diversity/MIMO processing. At Qualcomm he also worked on antenna systems for satellite phones, shaped beam antenna concepts for new ATG (air to ground) systems for the commercial airline industry and antennas for wireless power transfer and biological sensors.
His technical management experience includes his role as assistant antenna department manager at TRW where he was responsible for technical and administrative management of development projects, advanced antenna and lab facilities, project and department budgets, and staffing. At Qualcomm he progressed to the level of Vice President of the Hardware Engineering Group within Qualcomm’s Corporate R&D division (CR&D) where his responsibilities included technical and administrative management of teams of antenna, RF/MW, and digital engineers that developed new HW solutions demonstrating new advanced telecommunication systems (such as 3G, 4G, and 5G), and antenna solutions for form fit accurate mobile phones used to demonstrate key features of the latest Qualcomm chipset designs. His responsibilities also included support of the development of annual R&D plans, identifying new areas for research, and helping to define and execute on collaborative research efforts with universities and small startup companies.
He has 57 granted US patents (240 worldwide). He holds a MSEE degree from USC.