here, take a seat and relax 🍵

hi! I am Hari.

I'm passionate about digital design, AI/ML, hardware engineering, and solving real-world problems through technology.

Currently building ML accelerators for Tesla Cybertrucks at Texas Instruments.

If you just happened to stumble upon here, feel free to start by going through my work and thoughts below 👇

Email • Twitter • LinkedIn • GitHub • Resume

About

Hey there! I'm Hariharan, a Digital Design Engineer at Texas Instruments with a passion for technology, problem-solving, and innovation. Currently working on cutting-edge projects involving ML accelerators for automobiles and AI-driven design automation.

Beyond engineering, I'm deeply involved in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, podcast hosting, and volunteer work. I believe in using technology to solve real-world problems and make a positive impact.

When I'm not coding or designing hardware, you'll find me on the BJJ mats, discussing AI trends on my podcast, or contributing to open-source projects.

I'm always excited to connect with fellow engineers, researchers, and anyone passionate about the intersection of AI and hardware design.

Experience

Digital Design Engineer

Texas Instruments India (TII), Bangalore Jul 2023 - Present
  • Working on physical design and constraints validation for automotive processors including AM261 and AM263
  • Developing specifications and PRDs for Data Flow Accelerator (DFA) - ML accelerator for automotive applications
  • Leading AI initiatives and automation projects to improve design flow efficiency
  • Mentoring interns on machine learning applications in semiconductor design
  • Contributing to PMCU AI taskforce for advancing AI integration in physical design

Industry Liaison

SRC Research Scholars Program Aug 2023 - Present
  • Improving DFT methods using Machine Learning
  • Working with Cadence Spectre and ML integration

AI Engineer

Omdena Jul 2023 - Jul 2024
  • Deployment lead for misinformation detection system for El Salvador
  • Digital Identity Profiling for SMEs ESG calculations with Voy Finance
  • Dashboard development for Project Canopy (deforestation detection in Cameroon)
  • LLM model deployment using GCP and Docker
  • Plant disease classification and student success prediction projects

Research Assistant

Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore Jan 2023 - Mar 2023
  • Worked with Professor SK Nandy to automate the process of running test cases on the Redefine Resource Manager (RRM)
  • Designed customized hardware IP that loads an ELF file onto the Rocket Chip SoC using memory mapped registers and FIFOs
  • Synthesized the IP on Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC, FPGA to run test cases onto the RRM core present in the Rocket Chip SoC
  • Set up the pipeline for running test cases on the SoC and ran benchmarks to evaluate the custom hardware's performance

Edge AI Intern

SandLogic, Bangalore Oct 2022 - Dec 2022
  • Was given a task to assess the impact of machine learning and accelerated computing on the hardware industry
  • Drew parallels between hardware acceleration of graphics with machine learning
  • Projected the potential growth of the ML acceleration technology over the next decade
  • Presented an analysis on the same at the end of the internship

Digital Design Intern

Texas Instruments India (TII), Bangalore May 2022 - July 2022
  • Worked with the physical design team at Texas Instruments to improve metrics collection and management for PD flow
  • Configured pipeline for automating metrics collection and display for designs like radar_hsm and ecu_periph
  • Enabled designers to efficiently debug their flows by adding an HTML/Javascript-based UI dashboard using Stylus CUI
  • Incorporated addition of custom metrics to get further insight on chip designs
  • Finalized the project by developing a wrapper (in bash) to enable comparison between multiple flows

Open Source Contributor

Free Unified Rendering in Python (FURY), Indiana University Bloomington Jan 2021 - Current
  • FURY is an open-source Python library with 100+ active users, available for scientific visualization. The library is available via PyPi or Anaconda package system
  • Developed actors to render dashed and dotted lines in 3D space
  • Designed and implemented a signed distance function (SDF) to render 3 types of Superquadrics
  • Devised an SDF for rendering a capsule actor with 2 parameters

Education

Bachelor of Technology - Electrical and Electronics Engineering

National Institute of Technology Karnataka 2019 - 2023

Major CGPA: 8.91/10

Minor CGPA: 9.0/10

Activities: Business SIG head at Institution of Engineers (IE), Systems Engineer at IRIS

Academic Achievements

  • K-CET Rank: 112 (2019)
  • 12th Board (CBSE): 93.6% (2019)
  • Multiple NPTEL course certifications

Research & Publications

"Solar Power Forecasting using Ensemble LSTM models"

IEEE Publication

Focus: Ensemble RDLR methods for renewable energy prediction

"Novel Methods for IR Drop Prediction in Automotive SoCs"

CadenceLive Conference

Ensemble model approach for power integrity analysis

Current Projects

PitchPerfect

AI agent to automate dating app interactions using computer vision, OCR, and personalized AI-generated responses

Tech stack: Python, OpenCV, ADB (Android Debug Bridge), Tesseract OCR, OpenAI GPT-4, Docker

Features: Automated profile analysis, UI element detection, personalized comment generation, device automation

MCP Search Server

Intelligent MCP (Model Context Protocol) server for discovering and researching MCP servers using Exa AI search engine

Tech stack: Python, FastMCP, Exa AI, Model Context Protocol

Features: Smart MCP discovery, intelligent analysis, similarity matching, category organization, AI assistant integration

Sillypoint Podcast

AI discussion platform

Focus: Regular discussions on latest AI trends and technologies

Technical Skills

Hardware Design

Verilog, FPGA, Digital Design

AI/ML

PyTorch, TensorFlow, LangGraph, OpenAI APIs

Tools

Cadence Spectre, Docker, AWS, GCP

Programming

Python, JavaScript, C++

Specializations

Design for Test (DFT), Power Integrity, ML Accelerators

Volunteer Experience

Youth for Seva

  • Back 2 School initiative
  • School painting projects
  • Trek and cleaning activities

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Community

  • Participated in 4PK Championship, Chennai
  • Logo design for Finding Flow Jiu Jitsu

Contact

I'm always excited to connect with fellow engineers, researchers, and anyone passionate about the intersection of AI and hardware design. Feel free to reach out!

Email: hari.ayapps@gmail.com
Twitter: HariAyapps
LinkedIn: hariharan-ayappane
GitHub: haran2001
Location: Bengaluru, Karnataka, India