IEEE Circuits and Systems Magazine - Q3 2022 - 3

Interview
An Interview with Ron Rohrer
I
n June of 2022, the Associate Editors
of the IEEE Circuits and Systems
Magazine, Nele Mentens
and Fan Chen had a great chance to
interview Professor Ron Rohrer.
In this interview, Professor Rohrer
shares his experience as a researcher,
entrepreneur, educator, and community
member over the past sixty
years with our CAS readers. We sorted
out a total of six questions, and
we hope our CAS readers will enjoy
and benefit from this article.
Biography
Ron Rohrer is Cecil & Ida Green Professor of Electrical
and Computer Engineering in the Bobby B. Lyle School
of Engineering at Southern Methodist University.
Ron received the S.B. (1960) degree from Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT) and the M.S. (1961)
and Ph.D. (1963) degrees from the University of California
(UC), Berkeley.
A noted educator, innovator and entrepreneur, Ron is
credited with driving Electronic Design Automation (EDA)
tools into broader industrial use. In 1969, in a graduate course
he taught at UC, Berkeley, he oversaw the development of an
integrated circuit simulation program similar to the FairCirc
program he had designed and implemented earlier at Fairchild
Semiconductor, a forerunner to SPICE (Simulation Program
with Integrated Circuit Emphasis). Based on his prior
work on Adjoint Circuit simulation, in 1971, he developed
the foundation of what became the industry standard technique
for simulation of analog and RF IC noise. In 1982, while
at GE, he launched the logic synthesis work that became the
Socrates tool that led to the products developed by Synopsys.
In 1989, as a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, he
introduced asymptotic waveform evaluation, which formed
the basis for industry-wide interconnection reduction techniques
AWE (Asympotic Waveform Evaluation); for efficient
delay calculation for digital integrated circuits.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MCAS.2022.3185869
Date of current version: 5 September 2022
THIRD QUARTER 2022
Ron was the 1981 founding editor
of the IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided
Design of Integrated
Circuits and Systems, and in 1988
he served as president of IEEE's Circuits
and Systems Society. He was
elected Fellow of the IEEE in 1980 " for
theoretical contributions and practical
software for computer-aided circuit
design. " In 1989 he was inducted into
the National Academy of Engineering
for contributions to circuit simulation
that have enabled deep submicron
IC design. Ron has authored and
co-authored five textbooks, all of
which were well-received, and over 100 technical papers,
some of which were very well received. His many awards
include a 1972-73 Alexander Von Humboldt Senior Fellowship
in its founding year, the IEEE 1993 Education Medal
" for innovation in bringing electrical engineering practice
into the classroom and merging academic research with
industrial need. " His other awards are the ASEE Terman
Award (1978); the IEEE CAS Van Valkenburg Award (1990);
the SRC Inventor Recognition Award (1990); the SRC Technical
Excellence Award (1991); the 1996 NEC Computer
and Communication Prize, a worldwide honor for pioneering
contributions in electronics; the EDAC Phil Kaufman
Award (2002); the IEEE CAS Belevitch Award (2009); the
IEEE Kirchhoff Award (2012) and four others for prize
papers (1967-1991).
Question 1: You have made tremendous contributions
to semiconductor CAD/EDA over the past sixty years.
To name a few, the adjoint sensitivity method and its
application to circuit analysis, the architect of the core
algorithms for SPICE (and its numerous commercial derivatives),
and the revolutionary Asymptotic Waveform
Evaluation (AWE) algorithm. Can you share your experience
of how you have maintained your passion, enthusiasm,
and creativity throughout your career? How did
you keep doing radical and innovative work? Do you
have any suggestions on any special training for junior
students interested in the CAD/EDA fields?
IEEE CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS MAGAZINE
3
IEEE Circuits and Systems Magazine - Q3 2022

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