IEEE Awards Booklet - 2012 - 15

M E D A L

O F

H O N O R

2012 IEEE Medal of Honor
Sponsored by the IEEE Foundation

John L. Hennessy

For pioneering the RISC processor architecture and for leadership in
computer engineering and higher education
One of the world's top leaders in computer engineering,
John L. Hennessy's pioneering work at Stanford University
as one of the early proponents of the Reduced Instruction
Set Computer (RISC) architecture helped revolutionize
how computing is performed. At a time when the industry
favored the Complex Instruction Set Computer (CISC) architecture, Dr. Hennessy assembled a team of researchers
in 1981 at Stanford to focus on the RISC architecture. He
thought that computing would be more efficient with a
simpler instruction set that could be processed in one
clock cycle compared to the many clock cycles required
for CISC. He created his MIPS (Microprocessor without
Interlocked PipestageS) processor, which was well liked
by academics but did not gain interest from industry,
which was attached to CISC. To help RISC fulfill its
potential and transfer the technology to industry,
Hennessy took a sabbatical from Stanford University to
found MIPS Computer Systems (now MIPS Technologies)
in 1984. By the end of the 1990s, seeing MIPS' success,
most major microprocessor companies introduced RISCbased products of their own. MIPS would become one of
the top computer processing architectures in the world
and it is used in nearly all of today's mobile applications
as well as in gaming consoles.

A member of Stanford's faculty since 1977 and having
held positions including provost and dean of the School
of Engineering, Dr. Hennessy was named Stanford
University's 10th president in 2000. As the first engineer
to hold the position, Dr. Hennessy has expanded
University programs related to the environment, energy,
and human health. He has created a "21st Century university" with an interdisciplinary approach to addressing
global concerns, changing Stanford in fundamental ways.
Dr. Hennessy follows a belief in not only changing technology for the better but ensuring that technical
innovations change the world for the better. He has
strived to bring important research to realization and
make it accessible to those who will benefit from it. In
2005, he was named the first holder of Stanford's Bing
Presidential Professorship.
An IEEE Fellow, Dr. Hennessy is currently president of
Stanford University, Calif.
Scope: For an exceptional contribution or an extraordinary career in IEEE fields of interest

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