Dr. Daniel A. Jiménez, professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University, has been named recipient of the 2021 B. Ramakrishna Rau Award by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Computer Society (CS) for his contributions to neural branch prediction in microprocessors.
The Rau award recognizes Jiménez as one of the world’s leading contributors to branch prediction, a technology essential to the microarchitecture of high-performance microprocessors.
“Jiménez’s groundbreaking work on neural branch predictors has fundamentally changed the way research and industry think about branch prediction,” Josep Torrellas, Saburo Muroga professor of computer science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said in the IEEE CS press release. “His research ideas and implementations have been incorporated into the branch predictors of many commercial processors. His impact on industry has been remarkable.”
Established in memory of B. Ramakrishna Rau, a widely recognized expert in the field of microarchitecture, the Rau award “recognizes Rau’s distinguished career in promoting and expanding the use of innovative computer microarchitecture techniques, including his innovation in compiler technology, his leadership in academic and industrial computer architecture, and his extremely high personal and ethical standards.”
Jiménez received his doctoral degree in computer sciences from The University of Texas at Austin, and his master’s in computer science and bachelor’s degree in computer science and systems design from The University of Texas at San Antonio.
He is an IEEE fellow, National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award winner and an Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Distinguished Scientist. He is a member of the ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Computer Architecture, IEEE International Symposium on High-Performance Computer Architecture and IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Microarchitecture (MICRO) Halls of Fame.
Jiménez will be presented the award at the MICRO-51 Conference, scheduled to take place Oct. 18-22. During the award ceremony, Jiménez will give a 20-minute acceptance talk.