Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli

Co-founder of Cadence Design Systems and Synopsys—the two largest companies in Electronic Design Automation (EDA)—Sangiovanni-Vincentelli is a world-renowned authority on integrated circuit and system design who has been instrumental in bringing EDA technology to market and ensuring its commercial success.

Born and raised in Milan, Italy, he attended liceo classico, studying ancient Greek and Latin. Sangiovanni-Vincentelli received his Engineering degree (a "laurea") summa cum laude from the Politecnico di Milano (Milan Polytechnic) in 1971.

The youngest person to become an Associate Professor there to date, he specialized in Network Theory. In 1975 Sangiovanni-Vincentelli left Milan Polytechnic to take a position as Visiting Professor at the University of California at Berkeley. He returned to Italy at the end of his term, but was asked to return. So in 1976 he returned to teach a basic Network Theory class.

In 1983, he co-founded SDA Systems–one of two companies that merged to form Cadence Design Systems. In 1986, Sangiovanni-Vincentelli went on to help found Synopsys.

During the 1990s, he developed the foundations of "platform-based design," a comprehensive design and analysis methodology for electronic systems. He received the 1995 IEEE Graduate Teaching Award, the 2001 Phil Kaufman Award for his pioneering contributions to EDA from the Electronic Design Automation Consortium.

He also received the 2009 IEEE/RSE Wolfson James Clerk Maxwell Award. Sangiovanni-Vincentelli presently serves on the Board of Directors of Cadence Design Systems Inc., where he has served as Chair of the Technology Committee. An advisor to leading companies such as Intel, United Technologies, General Motors and Pirelli, in 1983 Sangiovanni-Vincentelli became an IEEE Fellow and in 1998 he was elected to member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering. Sangiovanni-Vincentelli continues to serve on the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, and holds the Edgar L. and Harold H. Buttner Chair of Electrical Engineering.

He has published 800 papers and 15 books in the areas of EDA, design methodologies, control, hybrid systems and system-level design.