Istvan Novak

Principal Signal and Power Integrity Engineer

Samtec

Istvan is the Principal Signal and Power Integrity Engineer at Samtec.  He is currently working on new technologies and system designs that enable customers to improve power delivery and increase data speeds beyond 100Gbps.  He is a Life Fellow of IEEE for his contributions to signal-integrity and power-integrity designs, modeling, measurements and simulations. He has 40+ years of experience in high-speed and high-power electronics designs as well as teaching and consulting.

Previously Dr Novak was at Oracle/SUN for 21 years, working on new advanced power distribution design, signal integrity and validation methodologies. He was responsible for the power distribution and high-speed signal integrity designs of SUN's successful workgroup server families. He introduced the industry's first 25um power-ground laminates for large rigid computer boards, and worked with component vendors to create a series of low-inductance and controlled-ESR bypass capacitors.

Dr Novak also served as SUN's representative on the Copper Cable and Connector Workgroup of InfiniBand, and is engaged in the methodologies, designs and characterization of power-distribution networks and CPU packages and has twenty five patents.

He is the lead author of the book "Frequency-Domain Characterization of Power Distribution Networks" (Artech House, 2007) and Executive Editor of the book "Power Distribution Design Methodologies" (IEC, 2008).

In 2020, Dr Novak was announced as Engineer of the Year at the DesignCon event in Santa Clara, Calif. (Jan 30, 2020).

For additional insight into Dr Novak, please read the EDN Network's Profile in Design.