Dr. Robert K. Brayton to Be Honored as 14th Kaufman Award Winner by EDA Consortium, IEEE Council on EDA

SAN JOSE, Calif. & NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dr. Robert K. Brayton, Cadence Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California at Berkeley, has been chosen as this year’s recipient of the Phil Kaufman Award for Distinguished Contributions to Electronic Design Automation (EDA).

“Bob Brayton is well deserving of this award. He is recognized as an industry pioneer and one of the world’s authorities in logic synthesis and formal verification.”

The award, sponsored by the EDA Consortium and the IEEE Council on EDA, will be presented to Dr. Brayton November 1 during the 14th annual Kaufman Award dinner at the Marriott Hotel in Santa Clara, Calif.

“We congratulate Bob Brayton for his many accomplishments and offer him a sincere thank you for his numerous contributions to the EDA industry,” remarked Al Dunlop, president of the IEEE Council on EDA.

Aart de Geus, chairman of the EDA Consortium and chairman and CEO of Synopsys, Inc., added: “Bob Brayton is well deserving of this award. He is recognized as an industry pioneer and one of the world’s authorities in logic synthesis and formal verification.”

According to Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli, a colleague at the University of California at Berkeley and a Kaufman Award recipient: “Bob Brayton is a technical giant. He has positively impacted the research carried out in EDA in a way no one else has done. His technical contributions are the basis for most of our industry’s offerings today.”

Dr. Brayton’s seminal contributions to logic synthesis have been critical to the design of application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and the development of CAD products that use logic synthesis software. Additionally, he co-developed the Sparse Tableau Approach and the Backward Differentiation Formulas. Their implementation as early Circuit Simulation software influenced SPICE, HSPICE™ and Spectre®.

From 1961-1987, Dr. Brayton was employed with the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., where he and his colleagues worked on the Yorktown Silicon Compiler that led to combining synthesis and place and route techniques.

A professor at the University of California at Berkeley since 1987, Dr. Brayton is an IEEE Fellow and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. Dr. Brayton has received the IEEE Circuits and Systems Technical Achievement Award, the Circuits and Systems Golden Jubilee Award, the IEEE Millennium Medal and the Emanuel R. Piore Award. He received the Iowa State University Marston Medal, the 2006 European Design Automation Society lifetime achievement award and the ACM Paris Kanellakis Theory and Practice Award. He has published 10 books and more than 450 papers.

Dr. Brayton earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, and a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass.

About the Kaufman Award

Presented annually since 1994, the award honors an individual who has had a demonstrable impact on the field of EDA. It was established in honor of deceased EDA industry pioneer Phil Kaufman, who turned innovative technologies such as silicon compilation and emulation into businesses that have benefited electronic designers. For more information on the award and to register to attend the event, go to www.edac.org or www.ieee-ceda.org.

About the EDA Consortium

The EDA Consortium is the international association of companies that provide design tools and services that enable engineers to create the world’s electronic products used for communications, computer, space technology, medical, automotive, industrial equipment, and consumer electronics markets among others. For more information about the EDA Consortium, located in San Jose, CA, contact 408-287-3322 or visit www.edac.org.

About the Council on EDA

The Council on Electronic Design Automation is IEEE’s focal point for multiple EDA disciplines. Its goal is to bring increased value to IEEE members and the EDA community as a whole by coordinating EDA activities, enabling new initiatives, fostering interdisciplinary research and recruiting young talent to EDA. It also will increase visibility for IEEE-sponsored EDA events such as the Design Automation Conference (DAC) and International Conference on Computer Aided Design (ICCAD) and its technical publications. Its charter spans theory, implementation and use of computer aided design (CAD) tools to design integrated electronic circuits and systems. Its website is located at: http://www.ieee-ceda.org.

Note to local editors:

Dr. Brayton and his wife, Ruth (formerly Blandford), reside in Berkeley, Calif., and Burlington, Vt. They have three children — Jane Brayton Burchard of Burlington, Vt., James Brayton of Portland, Ore., and Michael Brayton of Berkeley Calif. — and five grandchildren.

The information supplied by the EDA Consortium and the IEEE Council on EDA is believed to be accurate and reliable, but they assume no responsibility for any errors that may appear in this document. All trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.