Meet The Expert-Vincent Nguyen - Compaq BL10e - HP ProLiant - 512 MB RAM Update Manual

ISS Technology Update
Meet the Expert—Vincent Nguyen
Vincent Nguyen is an ISS Technologist with over 20 years at Compaq/HP.
Vincent began as a technician and advanced to become a system architecture
expert on single- and dual-socket Intel®-based ProLiant servers, which happen to
be the best-selling HP servers. As a system architect, he is familiar with all aspects
of the design and invention process. He is known for being very "hands-on" and
he consults in numerous areas, including power management, security, and RAS
(reliability, availability, and scalability).
According to Gene Freeman, Vincent's manager, many of Vincent's innovations
have become industry-standard features in Intel Architeture (IA) x86 and IA-64 bit
server segments. Vincent has created several methodologies that have resulted in
lower product development and manufacturing costs. He is also an active voice
within the design centers and commonality core teams, which ensure that the
various platforms have optimized, balanced architectures. Gene says that
Vincent's innovations are inspired by the knowledge he gains about customers
through Tech Tours and Tech Exchanges. After his invention is approved by one of
the design teams, Vincent helps to work through any technological obstacles to
ensure a timely product release.
Vincent co-authored the 2004 Techcon paper, "Expanding Memory RASUM
Features in ISS servers." The paper was selected from more than 1500 abstracts
across technical communities of all HP Business Units.
Vincent says that his favorite hobbies are traveling and learning about other
cultures. These have given him a wider perspective, which influences his work by
making him open minded to ideas from others. Gene points out that "Vincent
firmly believes in teamwork and in sharing information among peers. He has a
simple philosophy that no one team member knows everything."
Vincent and his wife, Melanie, have three beautiful daughters ages 20, 18, and
8. Below are excerpts from an interview with Vincent. As evidenced by his
responses, he is a man of few words, but many patents. The patents are listed on
the right and the patents filed are listed on the following page.
Why did you decide to become an engineer?
There was no reason in particular. The trend at the time was toward engineering.
What are your favorite inventions?
The system BIOS boot-block and on-line spare/hot-plug memory inventions are my
favorites. They have become industry-standard features today. I developed a
prototype board that implemented a boot block feature to prevent the total loss of
ROM code if a catastrophic event occurred during a ROM upgrade. I also
developed the first on-line spare and hot plug/redundant memory controller in the
PC server industry. I designed discrete logic on the ProLiant DL380 G2 server to
detect a faulty DIMM and then fail over to an on-line spare memory DIMM. I also
designed a memory board that implemented the hot plug concept to interface with
the RCC Champion 1.0 chipset. I also wrote the ROM code and worked with
several NT developers to modify the OS to support "Hot Add/Replace" memory
when a DIMM was inserted or replaced.
Volume 7, Number 7
Name: Vincent Nguyen
Title: ISS Technologist
Years at HP: 20
Education:
University of Houston
•
Bachelor of Science, Electrical
Engineering, 1992
U.S. Patents:
Patent #7107493: System and
•
method for testing memory errors in
a computer system. Nguyen, V.,
Depew, K.; 9/12/06
• Patent #7035953: Computer system
architecture with hot pluggable
memory board. Krontz, J.,
Depew, K., Nguyen, J., Heinrich,
D., Engler, D., Nguyen, V.,
Dow, R., Kidwai, O.; 4/25/06
• Patent #6487623: Replacement,
upgrade and/or addition of hot-
pluggable components in a
computer. Emerson, T., Nguyen, V.,
Michels, P., Clohset, S.; 11/26/02
• Patent #6401157: Hot-pluggable
component detection logic. Nguyen,
V., Emerson, T.; 6/04/02
• Patent #6055582: SCSI duplex
ready backplane for selectively
enabling SCSI simplex and duplex
modes based on indication of
desired SCSI mode ; Pascarella, R.,
Nguyen, V.; 4/25/00
Patent #5867676: Reset circuit for
•
a peripheral component
interconnect bus. Nguyen, V.,
Brownell, P.; 2/02/99
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