Artifact Details

Date

2014-03-20

Contributor

Brayton, Robert K., Interviewee

Fairbairn, Doug, Interviewer

Fortier, James, Videographer

Publisher

Computer History Museum

Place of Publication

Mountain View, California

Extent

44 p.

Format

PDF

Copyright Holder

Computer History Museum

Description

Bob grew up in Ames, Iowa, home of Iowa State University. Living amongst all those professors and the son of a high school teacher, he understood the value of education. He entered Iowa State as an aeronautical engineer major, but eventually ended up focusing on electrical engineering.

Upon graduation, he worked for Sperry helping to develop a computer for an ICBM. Then after six months to fulfill his ROTC commitment, he headed back to school. He entered MIT in 1957, majoring in math. Within the math department, he was introduced to the world of computing, writing a Lisp compiler as well as other activities.

Upon earning his PhD, Brayton went to work at IBM Yorktown Heights Research Center, where he was able to continue to pursue his dual interests in math and computers. His work on developing new ways to mathematically represent electronic circuits at first led to improved circuit simulation tools.

From there, Bob moved onto logic circuits and became interested in determining what logic functions could be mapped onto a particular set of logic. This eventually led to cooperation with UC Berkeley on two-level logic minimization. Several years later he left IBM and became a professor at UC Berkeley. His work at Berkeley was heavily focused on formal logic verification.

Category

Transcription

Subject

semiconductor history; Electronic design automation (EDA); High-level synthesis; Synthesis; Binary Decision Diagram (BDD); Synopsys; MIS; SAT

Collection Title

Oral history collection

Credit

Computer History Museum

Lot Number

X7128.2014

Related Records

102746879

Brayton, Bob (Robert K.) oral history