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Bio and History
of E.I.S.
Reiner W. Hartenstein
University of Kaiserslautern
CV of Reiner Hartenstein
Dr.-Ing. Reiner W. Hartenstein
currently is professor of
Computer Science and Engineering
at Kaiserslautern
University. He received all his
academic degrees from
the EE Department at Karlsruhe University,
where he later
became Associate Professor of Computer
Science.
Before joining Kaiserslautern he
has worked in character
recognition, image processing, digital
and hybrid circuits and
systems, computer architecture,
microprogramming, and
high level hardware description
languages.
At Kaiserslautern he worked on computer
structures,
high level hardware description
languages and on
VLSI design methods and tools. Since
about ten years
Prof. Hartenstein and his group
also works on reconfigurable
computing and related compilation
techniques. Supported by
various funding agencies the achievements
of his group are:
the definition and implementation
of
-
the successful hardware design language
KARL
-
its graphical companion language ABL
-
the Xputer machine paradigm (data-driven
procedural operation principles: counterpart of control-procedural "von
Neumann" paradigm*),
-
the reconfigurable KressArray family
(reconfigurable generalization of the systolic array),
-
co-compilation for configware/software
co-design,
-
and other achievements
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Prof. Hartenstein, Senior Member
of the IEEE and FPL fellow,
organized numerous international
workshops and
conferences as a
-
program chair (10 times), as
-
industrial chair,
-
steering committee member (2 conf. series)
and,
-
general chair, as well as many times
as a
-
program committee member and/or reviewer
Prof. Hartenstein is founder
or co-founder of
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IFIP working group 10.2 (now 10.5)
-
the FPL int'l conference series (Field-programmable
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Logic and Applications)
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the PATMOS int'l workshop series on
low power VLSI design,
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of EUROMICRO, as well as of the
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German Multi University E.I.S.-Project
(VLSI-Design).
Many times Prof. Hartenstein
has been invited to international
conferences as an invited speaker,
keynote speaker, embedded
tutorial speaker, and as a panelist.
He has authored, co-authored
or co-edited 14 books and more than
350 papers.
_________
*) no dataflow machine, but deterministic (whereas
the dataflow
machine is arbitration-driven,
i. e. indeterministic)
History of the E.I.S. Project
E.I.S. (Entwurf Intergierter Schaltungen) has
been the name of the German Mead & Conway style multi university VLSI
design project including a multiproject chip organization. The E.I.S. project
has been funded by the German Minister of Research and Technology (BMFT)
from 1983 thru 1989. E.I.S. has been the forerunner of the EUROCHIP organisation
funded later by the Commission of the European Union.
More interesting E.I.S. history: see
here (in English) or
here (in German).
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In the 70ies Prof. Carver
Mead from Caltech
(California Institute of Technology) preaches, that in teaching on integrated
circuits the technology should be separated from design: "The design (Design
Sciences) must be its own discipline." Of course, technology professors
did not like this idea: "This little bit of design we easily do on the
fly".
-
Winter quarter 1978: Lynn
Conway as a guest professor at M.I.T. gives her famous VLSI system
design course with design exercises. Second week of January in 1979 her
student held in their hands from their designs the fabricated and packaged
chips. During the Xmas / New Year break the student designs had been checked
and merged to multiproject chips at
Xerox
PARC (3333 Coyote Hill Drive, Palo Alto). A few years later this multiproject
chip organization pioneered by Lynn Conway has been taken over by the MOSIS
Service at ISI (Information Sciences Institute in Marina del Rey, close
to Los Angeles) of the University of Southern California (USC). The fabrication
of the designs from Lynn Conway's M-I.T. students has been carried out
on a Hewlett-Packard pilot fabrication line at Deer Creek Road, next street
parallel to Coyote Hill Drive.
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Apropos Xerox PARC: a fascinating literature is the
book "Dealers of Lightning"
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A well attended one week Mead-&-Conway course
for professors took place in 1979 at Seattle.
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On the way home from a business trip to San Diego
for DAC 1979 Prof. Hartenstein visits
Prof. Carver
Mead at Caltech, Pasadena, California.
-
Also in 1979 at a party in Berkeley Prof. Hartenstein
gets introduced to Dr. Lynn Conway (head of the VLSI Lab at PARC).
A few days later he holds in hands the prepublication copies of the first
4 chapters of the forthcoming book "C. Mead, L. Conway: Introduction to
VLSI Systems", which appeared mid' 1980 from Addison Wesley 1980
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During summer semester 1979 Prof. Hartenstein holds
his first Mead-&-Conway style graduate course (exercises included)
"Einführung in den VLSI-Entwurf" at the University of Kaiserslautern
- as the first "on the continent" (Europe and Asia). Only in UK, off shore
from continent, a colleague did it half a year earlier.
-
In February 1980 Prof. Hartenstein sends a VLSI multi
university project proposal to Regierungs-Direktor Dr. Hamacher at
BMFT (German Ministry of Research and Technology)
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For March 19, 1980, from 9.00 a.m. til about noon
Dr. Hamacher invites to a meeting within BMFT. Attendees have been: Dr.
Klaus Berkling (GMD), Prof. Dr. Walter Engl (RWTH Aachen), Dr. Hamacher
(BMFT), and Prof. Reiner Hartenstein (Univ. Kaiserslautern). Prof. Engl,
a technologist having had worked for years as a consultant to Dr. Hamacher,
meant: "Carver Mead is a charlatan". He mentioned, that, instead of going
to Coyote Hill Drive he went to Deer Creek Road to find out the real truth.
At the end of the meeting Dr. Berkling and Prof. Hartenstein felt having
been fired first class.(Later Dr. Berkling became Professor at Cornell
Univ.)
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At a NATO ASI (Advanced Study Institute) on Very Large
Scale Integrated Circuits held July 7 - 18 in 1980 at Louvain-La-Neuve,
Belgium, Dr. Lynn Conway had been scheduled with 4 talks. But because of
political issues during the Reagan administration the Xerox headquarters
did allow Dr. Lynn Conway to attend. Two of Lynn Conways talks have been
given by Prof. Carlo Sequin (UC Berkeley) and the other two by Prof.
Reiner Hartenstein (Univ. Kaiserslauern).
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July 20 thru August 1 Prof. Paolo Antognetti (Univ.
Genua) und Prof. Don Pederson (UC Berkeley) held another NATO ASI on VLSI
Design Methods at Urbino, Italy, with about 80 attendees. At August 2 in
1980 the railway main station of Bologna has been blown up by terrorists
- only a few minutes after the Gotthard Express had left the station with
Prof. Hartenstein on board, who has been on the way home from Urbino.
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At the annual "Schlosstag" reception at Schloss Birlinghoven
on October 1 in 1980 Prof. Norbert Szypersky quasi celebrates his debut
as the new CEO of GMD. In front of the dinner buffet Prof. Hartenstein
had a lengthy talk with Prof. Szypersky and the queue of other guests waiting
for shake hands with the new CEO was growing longer and longer. VLSI became
a matter of the boss and Dr. Woelcken, head of Prof. Szypersky's staff,
was put into charge at very high priority.
-
September 27 thru 29 in 1982, the GMD Research Center
at Schloß Birlinghoven, gave a course for scientists ("professors
back to school desk") on VLSI design with Prof. Hartenstein as the only
speaker.
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Because of high demand the above couse has been split
up into 2 courses. The second one has been held October 18 thru 20 in 1982,
also at Schloß Birlinghoven. At a social event in the evening of
the second day Dr. Woelcken (GMD) and Reiner Hartenstein have set up a
pressure group from bunch of professors.
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Toward the end of 1982 Prof. Seitzer (Univ. Erlangen-Nuremberg),
Prof. Waldschmidt (Univ. Frankfurt) and Prof. Hartenstein met in a hotel
close to the Autobahn cross Biebelried for coordination of the pressure
group.
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After elections in 1983 Helmut Kohl having promised
"die große Wende" (the great turnaround) became Bundeskanzler, and
Dr. Heinz Riesenhuber became research and technology minister, which turned
out to be "die große Wende" for the pressure group mentioned above.
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In 1983: Dr. Woelcken sends a proposal the successor
of Dr. Hamacher, simultaneously with a letter by Prof. Hartenstein addresed
to the minister in person. (Prof. Hartenstein had met Dr. Riesenhuber already
in the 70ies.)
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Toward the end of 1983 a grant of about 35 million
Deutschmark has been approved to run the multi university E.I.S. project
for 3 years
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In 1987 the E.I.S. project has been extended by another
18 months with a second grant.
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Around 1989 the EUROCHIP organization has been set
up after extensive lobbying activities by Prof. Hartenstein and by Dr.
Woelcken, as soon as he had left GMD to join the Commission of the European
Union.
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1982 - 1988: Prof. Hartenstein gives a series of colloquium
talks and invited
VLSI courses at different countries in Europe. abcd
[1] Michael Hiltzik: Dealers
of Lightning - Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age; HarperCollins,
New York, 1999