We are deeply sad to learn that Richard Newton passed away from pancreatic cancer on January 2, 2007. He was 55.

The EDA Consortium owes a great debt to Richard for his great contributions to our industry. We recently honored Richard Newton, Dean of the College of Engineering with the 2003 Kaufman Award in October 2003. (See award dinner photos, video, and presentation speech.)

The EDA Consortium, and several of Richard Newton's friends and colleagues, has joined together with the University of California Berkeley to erect the Dean A. Richard Newton Professorship.

Richard Newton was the Roy W. Carlson Professor of Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at Berkeley and was the founding Director of the MARCO/DARPA Gigascale Silicon Research Center for Design and Test from 1998-2002. His teaching and research interests include all aspects of the design of electronic systems and the application of information and communication technologies (ICT) to the solution of societal problems.

Dr. Newton began his EDA career as a student at the University of Melbourne, Australia, where he developed one of the first interactive versions of the SPICE circuit simulator in 1971, using an ASR33 teletype. He continued his work in circuit simulation at Berkeley, pioneering mixed-mode simulation and then developing with his students a timing analysis technique in the mid-1980s.

Dr. Newton introduced the notion of a "CAD Framework" to the research community in 1979-where a unified data model, open tool-based integration methodology and extension language are used to construct and evolve an EDA system. This work was used as the technical foundation for SDA Systems, now Cadence Design Systems. He was also part of the core team that developed EDIF (Electronic Design Interchange Format).

Dr. Newton has also played a key role in the formation of several successful EDA companies, including Synopsys, Inc., SDA, PIE Design Systems and Simplex Solutions (now part of Cadence) among others. More biographical information.