Frank Gerald Soltis

Chief Scientist for IBM's System i computers, Soltis is recognized as a pioneer of technology-independent machine interfaces (TIMI) and describes himself as the grandfather of the AS/400. His pioneering architecture of TIMI and single-level stores appeared in eight generations of IBM hardware: System/38 in 1978, the CISC AS/400 in 1988, the RISC AS/400 in 1995, the web server AS/400e in 1999 (supporting HTTP and TCP/IP), the eServer iSeries, the System i5, the System i, and IBM Power Systems running IBM i (April, 2008).

In 1968, he completed his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Iowa State University. His dissertation was titled "Automatic Allocation of Digital Computer Storage Resources for Time-sharing." In November 1968, Soltis took a position with IBM in Rochester, Minnesota. He led the design of the "Amazon" instruction set architecture, an extended version of the 64-bit PowerPC architecture; the Amazon architecture is implemented by the RS64, POWER4, and POWER5 processors used in the IBM iSeries and pSeries computers.

In addition to his IBM responsibilities, he has served as an adjunct professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Minnesota, where he taught graduate courses on high performance computer design. Soltis retired from IBM on December 31, 2008. In February 2009, Vision Solutions, a high availability and disaster recovery solutions provider in IBM Power Systems markets, announced that he had joined their Technology Advisory Board (TAB). He has shared his experience and insight helping guide product strategies.

His publication, "By Design" column appears in iPro Developer magazine. His books include "Inside the AS/400" — Duke Press. ISBN 1-882419-66-9, (1997); and "Fortress Rochester, The Inside Story of the IBM iSeries" — NEWS/400 Books. ISBN 1-58304-083-8, (2001).