Eduardo Lopez-Gil
Verified Expert in Engineering
Embedded Engineer and Software Developer
Chicago, IL, United States
Toptal member since August 20, 2025
Eduardo is a resourceful electrical engineer with over 25 years of experience designing RTL embedded systems across aerospace, telecommunications, industrial, and HFT sectors. Leveraging expertise in hardware-software integration, real-time firmware, and low-noise analog, he leads the development of robust, safety-critical systems. Eduardo delivers innovative solutions under demanding technical and regulatory constraints, ensuring performance and reliability in complex environments.
Portfolio
Experience
- Hardware Design - 20 years
- Embedded Systems - 20 years
- RTL - 12 years
- Xilinx Vivado - 11 years
- C - 8 years
- Verilog - 8 years
- VxWorks - 5 years
- Cadence - 5 years
Preferred Environment
Windows, Linux, Xilinx Vivado, Cadence
The most amazing...
...solution I've built was hardware and firmware for a redundant communication board of a SIL distributed system, featuring dual USB OTG and Ethernet connections.
Work Experience
Senior FPGA Engineer
Citadel
- Designed and deployed ultra-low latency FPGA market data feed processing.
- Built development infrastructure, toolchains, and a continuous deployment pipeline.
- Designed the hardware schematics and supervised the external PCB layout for an FPGA board.
Principal Embedded Engineer
Emerson
- Designed multiprocessor hardware for signal filtering and parameter extraction using ARM, Cortex, and FPGA, integrated USB OTG, Ethernet, eMMC, NAND flash, and other peripherals, and ported embedded Linux with custom drivers for signal processing.
- Engineered hardware and firmware for a redundant communication board managing intra-rack and inter-rack communications at a safety integrity level (SIL) distributed protection and prediction system with dual USB OTG and dual Ethernet connections.
- Developed a firmware application and downloadable kernel running on a PowerPC P1010 with VxWorks for a machinery health monitoring system.
Senior Principal Engineer
PS Engineering
- Constructed an intercom audio system for Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo using an aerospace-grade Actel FPGA.
- Built the first audio panel for general aviation with Bluetooth capabilities, supporting hands-free and streaming music profiles, using an Actel FPGA ProASIC3.
- Architected the PAR100EX low-noise Bluetooth and radio transceiver using an Actel FPGA ProASIC3.
- Developed embedded products for general and commercial aviation, performing compliance testing according to RTCA and FAA specifications, and utilizing mixed-signal systems to implement complex signal switching.
- Designed, laid out, and tested complex PCBs using the OrCAD design environment, and applied VHDL, simulation, and performance optimization tools to achieve high efficiency on Actel FPGAs.
Founder Principal Engineer
Algerado Corporation
- Built the electronic drive and control system for a 28 HP/374 ft-pound all-terrain vehicle in an electric vehicle platform, based on a SepEx motor with CAN connectivity, supporting SLA, lithium-ion, LiPo, and nickel-zinc battery management systems.
- Developed the electronic drive and control system for a 45-mile, 600-pound, 20-MPH ATV using two BLDC hub motors and a 72V/50Ah SLA battery.
- Crafted aeroacoustic levitator hardware to control the phase and frequency of six piezoelectric transducers, enabling a sample to levitate for studying ceramic properties at high temperatures, based on a dsPIC33 and Xilinx XA95144XL.
- Engineered hardware and firmware for an encrypted GSM cell phone, migrating the CELP 4800 vocoder for voice compression from floating-point to fixed-point on a TI DSP TMS320C5416 and Xilinx XA95144XL.
- Architected an audio intercom system for a high-speed overland train in Kazakhstan using a TI TMS320C32 and Xilinx XA9572XL, achieving international railway standards compliance certification for EMI/EMC.
- Designed, coded, and implemented noise reduction algorithms for audio-pair measurement equipment and echo-canceling functions for telephone systems using a TMS320C32 and Altera EPM7160S.
- Constructed hardware to retrofit diesel railway locomotives, using an SAB 80535 and Altera EPM7160S to control electronic switching.
- Implemented and manufactured electronic controls for signaling equipment used in venues worldwide.
Experience
Aeroacoustic Levitator
Education
Master's Degree in Engineering Management
Northwestern University - Evanston, IL, USA
Master's Degree in Telecommunications
Polytechnic University of Madrid - Madrid, Spain
Bachelor's Degree in Telecommunications
Polytechnic University of Madrid - Madrid, Spain
Skills
Languages
Verilog, Embedded C, C, Embedded C++, SystemVerilog, VHDL, C++
Platforms
Windows, Linux, VxWorks
Industry Expertise
Telecommunications
Other
Xilinx Vivado, RTL, Hardware Design, Embedded Systems, Cadence, Engineering Management, Manufacturing, Logistics, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, DSP, RTLinux, FPGA
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