Biography

ASV holds the Edgar L. and Harold H. Buttner Chair of EECS at UC Berkeley. He has been on the Faculty since 1976. He obtained an electrical engineering and computer science degree ("Dottore in Ingegneria") summa cum laude from the Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy in 1971. In 1980-1981, he spent a year as a Visiting Scientist at the Mathematical Sciences Department of the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. In 1987, he was Visiting Professor at MIT. He has held a number of visiting professor positions at Italian Universities, including Politecnico di Torino, Universita’ di Roma, La Sapienza, Universita’ di Roma, Tor Vergata, Universita’ di Pavia, Universita’ di Pisa, Scuola di Sant’Anna.
He was a co-founder of Cadence and Synopsys, the two leading companies in the area of Electronic Design Automation. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Cadence, Sonics, Expert Systems, Accent, a former ST Microelectronics-Cadence joint venture he helped founding, and of KPIT Cummins. He was a member of the HP Strategic Technology Advisory Board, is a member of the Science and Technology Advisory Board of General Motors of the Technology Advisory Council of United Technologies Corporation. He consulted for many companies including Bell Labs, IBM, Intel, United Technologies Corporation, COMAU, Magneti Marelli, Pirelli, BMW, Daimler-Chrysler, Fujitsu, Kawasaki Steel, Sony, ST, United Technologies Corporation and Hitachi. He was an adviser to the Singapore Government for microelectronics and new ventures. He consulted for Greylock Ventures and for Vertex Investment Venture Capital funds. He is a member of the Advisory Board of Walden International, Sofinnova and Innogest Venture Capital funds and a member of the Investment Committee of the VC fund, Atlante Ventures, by Banca Intesa/San Paolo. He was the founder and Scientific Director of the Project on Advanced Research on Architectures and Design of Electronic Systems (PARADES), a European Group of Economic Interest supported by Cadence, Magneti-Marelli and ST Microelectronics. Since 2010, he has been the Senior Advisor to the President and CEO of L’Elettronica. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Lester Center for Innovation of the Haas School of Business and of the Center for Western European Studies and is a member of the Berkeley Roundtable of the International Economy (BRIE). He is a member of the High-Level Group, of the Steering Committee, of the Governing Board and of the Public Authorities Board of the EU Artemis Joint Technology Initiative. He is member of the Scientific Council of the Italian National Science Foundation (CNR). Since February 2010, he has been a member of the Executive Committee of the Italian Institute of Technology. Since January 2012, he has been a member of the Senior Strategy Panel (SSP) of DARPA’s META program. Since July 2012, he has been named Chairperson of the Comitato Nazionale Garanti per la Ricerca, a seven person committee established by the Ministry of Education, Scientific Research and University of the Italian Government to oversee the evaluation processes for research in Italy. Since January 2013, he is the President of the Strategic Committee of the Strategic Fund of Cassa Depositi e Prestiti.
In 1981, he received the Distinguished Teaching Award of the University of California. He received the worldwide 1995 Graduate Teaching Award of the IEEE (a Technical Field award for “inspirational teaching of graduate students”). In 2002, he was the recipient of the Aristotle Award of the Semiconductor Research Corporation. He received numerous research awards including the Guillemin-Cauer Award (1982-1983), the Darlington Award (1987-1988) of the IEEE for the best paper bridging theory and applications, and two awards for the best paper published in the IEEE Transactions on CAS and CAD, five best paper awards and one best presentation awards at the Design Automation Conference, other best paper awards at the Real-Time Systems Symposium and the VLSI Conference.
In 2001, he was given the Kaufman Award of the Electronic Design Automation Council for “pioneering contributions to EDA”. In 2008, he was awarded the IEEE/RSE Wolfson James Clerk Maxwell Medal “for groundbreaking contributions that have had an exceptional impact on the development of electronics and electrical engineering or related fields” with the following citation: “For pioneering innovation and leadership in electronic design automation that have enabled the design of modern electronics systems and their industrial implementation” In 2009, he received the first ACM/IEEE A. Richard Newton Technical Impact Award in Electronic Design Automation to honor persons for an outstanding technical contribution within the scope of electronic design automation. In 2009, he was awarded an honorary Doctorate by the University of Aalborg in Denmark. In 2011, he was given the EDAA Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2012, he was given an Honorary Doctorate from KTH in Sweden.