New Research Engineer in Optical Networking Area. Francisco Javier Vílchez Bermúdez was born in Barcelona, Spain, in 1975. He obtained his Telecommunication Engineering degree from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia in April 2002, after finishing a Final Thesis consisted in modelling routing protocols (OSPF and LDP) for IP optical networks. Later, he started to study Electronics Engineering at the same school, and obtained this degree in March 2007. This last Final Thesis consisted in modelling an InP/InGaAs HBT transistor with a selectively implanted collector pedestal.   

From 2000 to nowadays, he has been working in some companies developing roles focused in maintenance, customer support, management and operation of computers, systems and networks. Thanks to this experience, he has achieved a lot of knowledge in different networking technologies, such as ATM, Ethernet, Frame Relay, Token Ring, X.25, DLC, etc., and in Win/Unix systems.

Nevertheless, he has special interest in electronic hardware and firmware design, and in communications by different mediums. In February 2008, he joined the CTTC as a Research Engineer.