Wen-mei Hwu Announced as the 2024 ACM-IEEE CS Eckert-Mauchly Award Recipient

LOS ALAMITOS, Calif., 26 June 2024 – The IEEE Computer Society (CS) is pleased to announce the recipient of the 2024 ACM-IEEE CS Eckert-Mauchly Award: Wen-mei W. Hwu, a Senior Distinguished Research Scientist at NVIDIA and Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The award honors Hwu’s pioneering and foundational contributions to the design and adoption of multiple generations of processor architectures. His fundamental and pioneering contributions have had a broad impact on three generations of processor architectures: superscalar, VLIW, and throughput-oriented manycore processors (GPUs).

An IEEE Fellow, Hwu has demonstrated seminal work as one of the original architects of the High-Performance Substrate (HPS) model that pioneered superscalar microarchitecture, introducing the concepts of dynamic scheduling, branch prediction, speculative execution, a post-decode cache, and in-order retirement. This work led to his selection as the 2014 recipient of the IEEE CS B. Ramakrishna Rau Award, which is bestowed on those individuals with substantial contributions in the field of computer microarchitecture and compiler code generation. IEEE CS recognized Hwu for contributions to instruction-level parallelism technology, including compiler optimization, program representation, microarchitecture, and applications.

“Wen-mei Hwu’s work has set the standard for excellence in processor architectures,” said Jyotika Athavale, 2024 IEEE CS President. “We’re thrilled to recognize his vast contributions to high-performance computing and thank him for his efforts to advance the industry.”

In addition to technical achievements, Hwu offers his time in support of broader industry education. For instance, he participated in IEEE CS’ Multi-Core Video Series, offering the training, “Autoparallelization for GPUs.” He also provided three offerings of the Coursera course on Heterogeneous Parallel Programming that were attended by more than 20,000 students, with 5,000 completing all exams and quizzes to receive a certificate.

Hwu and David Kirk (former Chief Scientist of NVIDIA) are widely credited for their contributions in making the GPU the computing device of choice for the HPC/ML communities. Hwu’s architecture and compiler techniques have impacted billions of processors.

Hwu will be formally recognized with the Eckert-Mauchly Award during an awards luncheon on Tuesday, July 2nd, at the International Symposium on Computer Architecture (ISCA 2024).

Biographical Background

Hwu is a Senior Distinguished Research Scientist and Senior Director of Research at NVIDIA. He is also Emeritus Professor and Sanders III Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., Endowed Chair Emeritus of ECE at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He is the past chair of the IEEE CS Technical Community on Microprogramming and Microarchitecture (TCuARCH), appointed as a member at large of the IEEE CS Technical Activities Committee, and has served as general chair, program chair and steering committee member for ACM/IEEE CS conferences such as MICRO, CGO, and ISCA. Hwu has published over 400 technical papers in major ACM/IEEE conferences and journals. With 29,715 citations, an h-index of 82, and an i-10 index of 281, Hwu is a leading computer architect in publications impact. Hwu received a PhD in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and a BS in Electrical Engineering from the National Taiwan University, Taiwan. His numerous honors also include the 2009 IEEE CS Charles Babbage Award, the ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award, and the ACM SIGARCH Maurice Wilkes Award.

About the Eckert-Mauchly Award

ACM and the IEEE Computer Society co-sponsor the Eckert-Mauchly Award, which was initiated in 1979. It recognizes contributions to computer and digital systems architecture and comes with a $5,000 prize. The award was named for John Presper Eckert and John William Mauchly, who collaborated on the design and construction of the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC), the pioneering large-scale electronic computing machine, which was completed in 1947.

About IEEE Computer Society

Engaging computer engineers, scientists, academia, and industry professionals from all areas and levels of computing, the IEEE Computer Society (CS) serves as the world’s largest and most established professional organization of its type. IEEE CS sets the standard for the education and engagement that fuels continued global technological advancement. Through conferences, publications, and programs that inspire dialogue, debate, and collaboration, IEEE CS empowers, shapes, and guides the future of not only its 375,000+ community members, but the greater industry, enabling new opportunities to better serve our world. Visit computer.org for more information.