Stephen Trimberger

Stephen Trimberger
Born 1955 (age 59–60)
Residence Incline Village, NV, USA
Nationality United States
Fields Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Philanthropy
Alma mater Ph.D. California Institute of Technology
Known for Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technology

Stephen “Steve” Trimberger (born 1955) is an American computer scientist, electrical engineer and philanthropist.

Education

Trimberger grew up in Sacramento, CA, USA and earned his B.S. in Engineering and Applied Science from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), M.S. in Information and Computer Science from the University of California at Irvine and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the California Institute of Technology.

While attending Caltech, Trimberger joined the Planet-Crossing Asteroid Survey (PCAS) project, with principal investigator Gene Shoemaker, operated by Eleanor “Glo” Helin. PCAS searched for asteroids that could potentially impact planets, including Earth. In recognition for his contributions to this project, minor planet 2990 was named “Trimberger.”

Trimberger had a unique opportunity in the late 1970s and early 1980s, interning at Xerox PARC in Lynn Conway’s VLSI Systems Group and studying at Caltech in Carver Mead’s and Ivan Sutherland’s Computer Science department while Mead and Conway were writing their landmark text, Introduction to VLSI Systems.[1] It exposed him to both the academic and industry sides of the VLSI revolution. One can discern in his career, attempts to bridge academia and industry bringing the best of the vision of academic research into the practical world of industry.

Career

Trimberger joined VLSI Technology in 1982 where, as a member of the original Design Technology group, he developed a variety of computer-aided design software including interactive tools, simulation, physical design automation and logical design automation. During this time, he wrote An Introduction to CAD for VLSI,[2] collecting and explaining the fundamental algorithms and techniques used in the early days of the CAE industry.

Since 1988, he has been employed at Xilinx, a fabless semiconductor company in San Jose, Silicon Valley, CA. He was a member of the architecture definition group for the Xilinx XC4000 Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), the first FPGA with dedicated arithmetic and memory.[3] At the same time, he was the technical leader for the XC4000 design automation software. He led the architecture definition group for the Xilinx XC4000X device families. He developed a Time-Multiplexed FPGA[4] and software[5] to map to it in the 1990s, long before Tabula commercialized the time-folded FPGA. He is an inventor on approximately thirty patents in this area. In the early 1990s, he edited and co-wrote Field-Programmable Gate Array Technology,[6] introducing the first generation of academic researchers to the industrial side of programmable-logic architecture, tools and design. He is acknowledged worldwide as an expert in FPGA architecture.

Trimberger has also been responsible for innumerable features of the Xilinx XC-families, Virtex, Kintex, Spartan and Artix devices. Some of his innovations are so fundamental they seem obvious in retrospect and can be found in commercial FPGAs and reconfigurable computing devices from many FPGA vendors. These include independently buffered logic block outputs [US Patent 5,815,004], internal feedback and cascade in logic blocks [US Patents 5,386,154 5,500,608], heterogeneous buffered and un-buffered interconnect [U S Patents 5,600,264 6,084,429], registered I/O cells to dramatically improve the efficiency of double-data-rate (DDR) signals [US Patents 5,594,367, 5,811,985 5,944,813] and configurable block SRAM with redundancy. [US Patents 7,111,224 and 7,143,332].

He designed the bitstream security system for the Xilinx Virtex-II [US Patent #7,058,177], the first bitstream encryption deployed in FPGAs. His inventions on that security system are the basis of security in all commercial FPGAs from Xilinx and others. With approximately fifty patents in the security domain, he is recognized as an expert in hardware security threats and countermeasures. He was also instrumental in bringing 3D packaging from a lab curiosity to a product in the mid-2000s [US Patent 7,605,458]. This was deployed by Xilinx as Stacked Silicon Interconnect Technology (SSIT).[7] Trimberger led the Xilinx Advanced Development group for many years and is currently Xilinx Fellow in Xilinx Research Labs in San Jose.

Trimberger has written three books on computer-aided design for integrated circuits and FPGAs. He has written dozens of papers on design automation and FPGA architectures. He is an inventor on more than two hundred patents in the fields of integrated circuit design, FPGA and ASIC architecture, CAE and cryptography.[8] He is a four-time winner of the Ross Freeman Award, Xilinx’s annual award for technical innovation. Dr. Trimberger is a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)[9] and a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).[10][11] He has served as Design Methods Chair for the Design Automation Conference,[12] Program Chair and General Chair for the ACM/SIGDA International Symposium on FPGAs (ISFPGA),[13] Chair of the ACM/SIGDA Technical Committee on FPGAs and Reconfigurable Computing,[14] associate editor of the ACM Transactions on Reconfigurable Technology and Systems,[15] and technical programs of numerous Workshops and Symposia. He is a highly sought-after keynote speaker at technical conferences world-wide.

Philanthropy

In 1999, he and his wife, Laura, founded the Trimberger Family Foundation,[16] a charitable organization whose mission is to support amateur athletics and appreciation and understanding of science and technology. The foundation actively supports FIRST Robotics teams[17] and Skeptic Check, part of the Big Picture Science[18] radio and webcast from the SETI institute.[19] Steve and Laura Trimberger both remain active in the operation of the foundation.

Trimberger has served on the board of directors of the Almaden Valley Youth Soccer League[20] (AVYSL) and on the board of directors of Notre Dame High School[21] in San Jose, CA.

Awards and recognition

Bibliography

References

  1. ↑ "CANDE". Retrieved 11 March 2014.
  2. ↑ "An Introduction to CAD for VLSI". Retrieved 11 March 2014.
  3. ↑ "FPL2012". Retrieved 11 March 2014.
  4. ↑ "Time-Multiplexed FPGA". Retrieved 11 March 2014.
  5. ↑ "Scheduling designs into a time-multiplexed FPGA". Retrieved 11 March 2014.
  6. ↑ "Field-Programmable Gate Array Technology". Retrieved 11 March 2014.
  7. ↑ "SEMI". Retrieved 11 March 2014.
  8. ↑ "USPTO". Retrieved 11 March 2014.
  9. ↑ "ACM Fellow". Retrieved 11 March 2014.
  10. ↑ "IEEE Fellow". Retrieved 11 March 2014.
  11. ↑ "IEEE Fellow". Retrieved 11 March 2014.
  12. ↑ "Design Automation Conference". Retrieved 11 March 2014.
  13. ↑ "the ACM/SIGDA International Symposium on FPGAs". Retrieved 11 March 2014.
  14. ↑ "The ACM/SIGDA Technical Committee on FPGAs and Reconfigurable Computing". Retrieved 11 March 2014.
  15. ↑ "The ACM Transactions on Reconfigurable Technology and Systems". Retrieved 11 March 2014.
  16. ↑ "The Trimberger Family Foundation". Retrieved 11 March 2014.
  17. ↑ "Robotics". Retrieved 11 March 2014.
  18. ↑ "Big Picture Science". Retrieved 11 March 2014.
  19. ↑ "BPS". Retrieved 11 March 2014.
  20. ↑ "Almaden Valley Youth Soccer League". Retrieved 11 March 2014.
  21. ↑ "Notre Dame High School". Retrieved 11 March 2014.

External links

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