EDA Consortium proudly honors Dr. Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli as the 2001 recipient of the prestigious Kaufman Award

Sangiovanni-Vincentelli is a world-renowned authority on circuit simulation, computer-aided design of integrated circuits, logic synthesis, and system design. With his appointment into the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), in April 1998, he attained the highest professional honor for an American engineer.

In 1971, he received his engineering doctorate ("Dottore in Ingegneria") summa cum laude from the Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy. He has served on the faculty of UC Berkeley since 1976. Alberto Sangiovanni Vincentelli holds the Edgar L. and Harold H. Buttner Chair of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California at Berkeley and the Vice-Chair position for Industrial Relations. He is on the Advisory Board of the Lester Center of the Haas School of Business and of the Center for Western European Studies, and a member of the Berkeley Roundtable of the International Economy (BRIE). Dr. Sangiovanni Vincentelli was co-founder of Cadence and Synopsys - the two leading companies in the area of Electronic Design Automation. He was a Director of ViewLogic, Pie Design System, and Chair of the Technical Advisory Board of Synopsys. He is presently the Chief Technology Adviser of Cadence Design System and founded Cadence Berkeley Research Labs - the first EDA industry's advanced technology research group. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Cadence, Sonics Inc., Accent, Softface, and co-founder and Chairman of ComSilica. He has consulted for a number of prestigious US, Japanese and European companies including: Alcatel, AT&T, BMW, Daimler-Chrysler, Ericsson, Fujitsu, GE, Hitachi, HP, IBM, Intel, Kawasaki Steel (as Chief Technology Advisor), Magneti-Marelli, ST Microelectronics, and Sony. He is the founder and Scientific Director of the Project on Advanced Research on Architectures and Design of Electronic Systems (PARADES), a European Group of Economic Interest supported by Cadence, Magneti-Marelli and ST Microelectronics.

Sangiovanni-Vincentelli has attained numerous awards in his career, including a 1981 Distinguished Teaching Award, the highest honor for teaching bestowed by U.C. Berkeley and a 1995 Electrical and Electronics Engineers' Graduate Teaching Award, an international honor given for the inspirational teaching of graduate students. In 1983, he was named IEEE Fellow for contributions to CAD of Integrated Circuits. He also received research awards for best papers and presentations including the IEEE's Guillemin-Cauer (1982-1983) and Darlington (1987-1988) awards and awards from the Design Automation Conference - three best paper awards and one best presentation. In 1999, he was awarded the IEEE CASS Golden Jubilee Medal.

Sangiovanni-Vincentelli is an author of more than 560 papers and 15 books in the areas of design methodologies and tools.

Sangiovanni-Vincentelli was born in Milan, Italy and attended the Classic Lyceum in Milan. He is still fluent in ancient Greek and Latin. Originally, he had wanted to study Philosophy but decided to study engineering instead. In 1976, he moved to the US and settled in Berkeley. In addition to teaching at Berkeley, he plays tennis and can still beat all his graduate students, even though they really try hard to beat him (or so they say!). He spends half his time in Rome where he directs a research center, PARADES. His wife is also a university professor in Italy.

Additionally, he has a very interesting family background, complete with a great-grandfather who was the medical doctor to both Pope Pius XI and Mussolini - even though his great-grandfather was a radical! His father and grandfather were both involved in banking.