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.

german version

In the 70ies Prof. Carver Mead from Caltech (California Institute of Technology) preaches, that inteaching 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 course with design exercises. Second week of January in 1979 her student hold in their hands their designs as fabricated and packaged chips. During the Xmas / New Year break the student design had been checked and merged to multiproject chips at Xerox PARC (3333 Coyote Hill Drive, Palo Alto. A few years later this multiprojectchip organisation pionered by Lynn Conway has been taken over by the MOSIS-Dienst 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 pilote fabrication line at Deer Creek Road, next street parallel to Coyote Hill Drive.

Apropos Xerox PARC: a fascinating literature is the book "Dealers of Lightning"

A well attended one week Mead-&-Conway course for professors took place in 1979 at Seattle ("professors back to school desk").

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

During summer semester 1979 Prof. Hartenstein holds his first Mead-&-Conway style graduate couse (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)

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 (TU 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 (where Lynn Conway`s chips have been fabricated) to find out "the real truth" - a technologist's point of view on design. Dr. Hamacher believed him. At the end of the meeting Dr. Berkling and Prof. Hartenstein felt having been thrown out first class.

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 not 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 (TU Kaiserslauern).

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.

At the annual "Schlosstag" 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.

Because of high demand this course 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.

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.

After elections in 1983 Helmut Kohl having promised "die große Wende" (the great turnaround) became Bundeskanzler, and Dr. Heinz Riesenhuber became R&T minister, which turned out to be "die große Wende" for the pressure group mentioned above.

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.)

Toward the end of 1983 a grant of about 30 million Deutschmark has been approved to run the multi university E.I.S. project for 3 years

In 1987 the E.I.S. project has been extended by another 18 months with a second grant.

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.

1982 - 1988: Prof. Hartenstein gives a series of colloquium talks and invited VLSI courses at different countries in Europe. a b c d

[1] Michael Hiltzik: Dealers of Lightning - Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age; HarperCollins, New York, 1999

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