An Interview with Yale Patt

Professor Yale Patt, the Ernest Cockrell, Jr. Centennial Chair in Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin has been named the 2016 recipient of the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science by the Franklin Institute. Patt is a renowned computer architect, whose research has resulted in transformational changes to the nature of high-performance microprocessors, including the first complex logic gate implemented on a single piece of silicon. He has received ACM's highest honors both in computer architecture (the 1996 Eckert-Mauchly Award) and in education (the 2000 Karl V. Karlstrom Award). He is a Fellow of the ACM and the IEEE and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. Derek Chiou, an associate professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, conducted an extensive interview of Patt, covering his formative years to his Ph.D. in 1966, his career since then, and his views on a number of issues. Presented here are excerpts from that interview; the full interview is available via the link appearing on the last page of this interview. DEREK CHIOU: Let's start with the influences that helped shape you into who you are. I have often heard you comment on your actions as, "That's the way my mother raised me." YALE PATT: In my view my mother was the most incredible human being who ever lived. Born in Eastern Europe, with her parents' permission, at the age of 20, she came to America by herself. A poor immigrant, she met and married my father, also from a poor immigrant family, and they raised three children. We grew up in one of the poorer sections of Boston. Because of my mother's insistence, I was the first from that neighborhood to go to college. My brother was the second. My sister was the third. You have often said that as far as your professional life is concerned, she taught you three important lessons. Almost everyone in our neighborhood quit school when they turned 16 and went to work in the Converse Rubber factory, which was maybe 100 yards from our apartment. She would have none of it.