Hardware, firmware & software engineer · Cologne, Germany
I build electronics and the software that runs on them. That covers schematic and PCB layout, microcontroller firmware, FPGA logic and the PC application. I have also taken a product of my own from crowdfunding through CE compliance to production. Most recently I have been building an FPGA-based LLM inference engine at Alloy Compute. I have worked as a professional developer since 1996, mostly freelance, for clients such as Alloy Compute, Vouch, RTW (professional audio measurement), ESTEC, Supreme NewMedia and DATA BECKER.
LLM inference on FPGAs, available at alloycompute.ai. I designed the FPGA inference engine in VHDL, the Rust host software and the serving backend. Qwen3-30B runs at over 200 tokens/s on a single card.
Digital keys for cars and buildings: Zephyr firmware for Bluetooth and UWB devices, a display unit, mobile app integration, security testing and a passwordless Windows login. Published the mcumgr-client firmware update tool as open source.
Circuit design, prototypes and firmware for industrial and commercial clients, including manufacturing support and PC software for the devices.
GPU-accelerated calculation and interactive 3D visualization of magnetic fields, as a C++/Qt application.
Took a crowdfunded MIDI cartridge for the C64 and C128 from idea to CE-compliant series production: hardware, CPLD logic, C64 software and a PC configuration tool. Project page
Firmware, embedded Linux GUIs, kernel drivers and FPGA logic for professional audio measurement and broadcast equipment. Also introduced version control and managed the firmware releases.
In-house Java client/server application for accounting and document management, plus the Linux server it runs on.
Java back end for supreme.de, a tool for creating eBay auction templates.
My own software development company, through which I ran client projects and sponsored the Mars Rescue Mission programming challenge together with Dr. Dobb's Journal.
“Web Fresh Pro”, a Windows application for customizing Flash website templates, based on my own reverse engineering of the Flash file format.
Java framework for an in-house insurance application, including the mainframe integration.
Maintained the C++ visualization of a workflow management system and wrote its new Java version.
A selection of my own hardware and software projects since 1996. Most come with schematics, source code and build notes. My newer projects are open source on GitHub.
Sci-fi puzzle game on Steam for Windows, macOS and Linux, with 1000 levels, leaderboards and achievements. Written in Godot with GDScript, the levels come from a generator in Rust.
MIDI interface with flash memory for the C64 and C128, crowdfunded and produced in series.
Puzzle game for the Vectrex vector console on my own cartridge hardware, plus a desktop version for Windows, Linux and macOS.
Modules for the VCV Rack software synthesizer, available in its official plugin library. The Formula module generates sound and control signals from math formulas.
Runs an original Intel 4004 CPU, with a microcontroller emulating the program memory. Built for the Retrochallenge.
Small analog synthesizer built around a 555 timer chip, an entry for the 555 contest.
Java applets and Flash no longer run in current browsers. These pages remain for the source code.
Interested in working together? Send me an e-mail. I'm happy to talk about hardware, firmware and software projects.
Frank Buss · Cologne, Germany · Impressum & Datenschutz