ACM Charles P. “Chuck” Thacker Breakthrough in Computing Award

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Papworth, formerly of Intel (retired), is the recipient of the ACM Charles P. “Chuck” Thacker Breakthrough in Computing Award. Papworth is recognized for fundamental groundbreaking contributions to Intel’s P6 out-of-order engine and Very Long Instruction Word (VLIW) processors."/> <meta property="og:type" content="website"/> <meta property="og:image" content="https://awards.acm.org/binaries/content/gallery/acm/ctas/people/david-papworth.jpg"/> <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image"/> <meta name="twitter:site" content="@theofficialacm"/> <meta name="twitter:title" content="David Papworth receives 2022 ACM Chuck Thacker Breakthrough in Computing Award"/> <meta name="twitter:description" content="For fundamental groundbreaking contributions to Intel’s P6 out-of-order engine and Very Long Instruction Word (VLIW) processors."/> <meta name="twitter:image" content="https://awards.acm.org/binaries/content/gallery/acm/ctas/people/david-papworth.jpg"/> <meta property="og:url" content="https://awards.acm.org/xpages/thacker/index"/>  <script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=AW-968097012"></script> <script> window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);} gtag('js', new Date()); gtag('config', 'AW-968097012'); </script>  <script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=AW-968097012"></script> <script> window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);} gtag('set', 'linker', { 'domains': ['acm.org/','cvent.com/'], 'accept_incoming': true }); gtag('js', new Date()); gtag('config', 'AW-968097012'); </script></head> <body>  <noscript><iframe data-cookieblock-src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-5BVDRXH" data-cookieconsent="marketing" height="0" width="0" style="display:none;visibility:hidden"></iframe></noscript>  <div id="header" class="row"> <nav class="top-bar eyebrow show-for-medium-up" data-topbar data-options="is_hover: false"> <section class="top-bar-section"> <div id="skiptocontent"><a href="#SkipTarget">skip to main content</a></div> <ul class="right"> <li><a href="https://www.acm.org" title="ACM Home">ACM Home</a></li> <li><a href="http://amturing.acm.org" title="ACM A.M. 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ACM awards recognize achievements by young computing professionals, educators, theoretical computer scientists, software systems innovators, and pioneers who have made humanitarian and cross-discipline contributions.</p> </div></div> </li> <li class="infonav__ctaList"> <div class="infonav__ctaList-cta"> <a href='https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2024/press-release/' target='_blank'><img src="/binaries/ctaimagelarge/content/gallery/acm/ctas/people/geoffrey-hinton.jpg" alt="2024 Nobel Prize in Physics recipient Geoffrey Hinton"></a><div class="cta-text"> <a href='https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2024/press-release/' target='_blank'>Geoffrey Hinton Awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics</a></div> </div> <div class="infonav__ctaList-cta"> <a href='https://awards.acm.org/barroso' target='_blank'><img src="/binaries/ctaimagelarge/content/gallery/acm/ctas/awards/acm-luiz-andre-barroso-award.jpg" alt="Image promoting the ACM Luiz André Barroso Award"></a><div class="cta-text"> <a href='https://awards.acm.org/barroso' target='_blank'>ACM Announces Luiz André Barroso Award</a></div> </div> <div class="infonav__ctaList-cta"> <a href='https://www.acm.org/media-center/2024/january/fellows-2023' ><img src="/binaries/ctaimagelarge/content/gallery/acm/ctas/awards/acm-fellows-member-badge.jpg" alt="acm-fellows-member-badge.jpg"></a><div class="cta-text"> <a href='https://www.acm.org/media-center/2024/january/fellows-2023' >ACM Names 2023 Fellows</a></div> </div> </li> </ul> </div> </li> <li class="has-dropdown not-click"><a href="#">Advanced Member Grades</a> <div class="dropdown clearfix"> <ul class="infonav clearfix"> <li class="infonav__linkList clearfix"> <a href="/advanced-member-grades" class="first">Advanced Grades of Membership</a> <ul class="infonav__linkList-list clearfix"> <li><a href="/fellows" title="ACM Fellows" >ACM Fellows</a></li> <li><a href="/distinguished-members" title="ACM Distinguished Members" >ACM Distinguished Members</a></li> <li><a href="/senior-members" title="ACM Senior Members" >ACM Senior Members</a></li> <li><a href="/fellows/faq" title="ACM Fellows FAQ" >ACM Fellows FAQ</a></li> <li><a href="/distinguished-members/faq" title="ACM Distinguished Members FAQ" >ACM Distinguished Members FAQ</a></li> <li><a href="/senior-members/faq" title="ACM Senior Members FAQ" >ACM Senior Members FAQ</a></li> <li><a href="/fellows/committee" title="ACM Fellows Committee" >ACM Fellows Committee</a></li> <li><a href="/distinguished-members/committee" title="ACM Distinguished Member Committee" >ACM Distinguished Member Committee</a></li> </ul> </li> <li class="infonav__landingPage"> <div> <p class="first">ACM Advanced Grades of Membership</p> <p>The ACM <span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); 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Turing Award" >ACM A.M. Turing Award</a></li> <li><a href="/acm-prize/nominations" title="ACM Prize in Computing" >ACM Prize in Computing</a></li> <li><a href="/thacker/nominations" title="ACM Charles P. "Chuck" Thacker Breakthrough in Computing Award" >ACM Charles P. "Chuck" Thacker Breakthrough in Computing Award</a></li> <li><a href="/fran-allen-nominations" title="ACM Frances E. Allen Award" >ACM Frances E. 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url(/binaries/bannerlarge/content/gallery/acm/banners/7_awards_acm_banner.jpg) no-repeat center 0 / 130% #000;"> <div class="gradient-wrapper" style="background: url('/binaries/content/gallery/global/gradient.png') repeat-x center 0 / 130% transparent;"></div> <div class="overlay" style="background: url('/binaries/content/gallery/global/tintpattern.png') repeat 0 0;"></div> <div class="row"> <div class="columns large-12 medium-12 banner-content"> <p class="banner-heading"> <small>Specific Types of Contributions</small> ACM Charles P. “Chuck” Thacker Breakthrough in Computing Award</p> <p>Individuals who have made surprising or disruptive leapfrog in computing ideas or technologies.</p><a class="button" href="thacker/award-recipients" > Award Recipients</a> <a class="button" href="/thacker/nominations" > Nominations</a> <a class="button" href="/thacker/committee" > Committee Members</a> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="article" id="maincontent"> <article class="has-edit-button" id="SkipTarget" tabindex="-1"> <div class="row"> <div class="columns small-12 zone-1"> <div> <div> <ul class="breadcrumbs"> <li><a href="/">Home</a></li> <li class="current"> <a href="/thacker">ACM Charles P. “Chuck” Thacker Breakthrough in Computing Award</a> </li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row"> <div class="columns large-8 medium-8 small-12 zone-2"> <div> <div> <div class="articles"> <div class="landing"> <h1> About ACM Charles P. "Chuck" Thacker Breakthrough in Computing Award</h1> <p>The award celebrates Chuck Thacker's pioneering contributions in computing and his long-term inspirational mentorship of generations of computer scientists.</p> <p><a href="/award_winners/thacker_1336106">Charles P. (Chuck) Thacker</a> (1943-2017) received the 2009 ACM A.M. Turing Award for “the pioneering design and realization of the first modern personal computer – the Alto at Xerox PARC – and seminal inventions and contributions to local area networks (including the Ethernet), multiprocessor workstations, snooping cache coherence protocols, and tablet personal computers."</p> <p>The ACM Breakthrough Award recognizes individuals with the same out-of-the-box thinking and “can-do” approach to solving the unsolved that Thacker exhibited. The recipient should be someone who has made a surprising or disruptive leapfrog in computing ideas or technologies.</p> <p>The award is accompanied by a prize of $100,000 and is presented at the annual ACM Awards Banquet. The award recipient would be expected to give the <em>ACM Breakthrough Lecture </em>at a major ACM conference of his or her choice during the year following the announcement. The travel expenses of the recipient, and a companion, to attend the Lecture are supported by the award. Financial support of the ACM Breakthrough Award is provided by Microsoft.</p> <p> </p></div> </div> </div> <div> <h2> ACM Chuck Thacker Breakthrough Award Goes to Innovator Who Transformed Web Applications</h2> <div class="awards-winners__related-content"> <h3> 2022 ACM Charles P. "Chuck" Thacker Breakthrough in Computing Award</h3> <div class="awards-winners__related-content-body"> <div class="video-wrapper" style="display: block;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" data-cookieconsent="ignore" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/sExe6z88OKw" width="560"></iframe></div> <div style="padding-top: 38px;"> <p>ACM named <a href="https://awards.acm.org/award-recipients/papworth_0762479">David B. Papworth</a>, formerly of Intel (retired), as the recipient of the ACM Charles P. “Chuck” Thacker Breakthrough in Computing Award. Papworth is recognized for fundamental groundbreaking contributions to Intel’s P6 out-of-order engine and Very Long Instruction Word (VLIW) processors.</p> <p>Papworth was a lead designer of the Intel P6 (sold commercially as the Pentium Pro) microprocessor, which was a major advancement over the existing state-of-the-art not just for Intel but for the broader computer design community. P6 introduced a new microarchitectural paradigm of decomposing complex x86 instructions into sequences of micro-operations that flowed through a micro data flow engine, constrained only by true data dependencies and machine resources. Surprising to many, this scheme, which is still in use today, also enabled significantly higher clock rates.</p> <p>With his own broad understanding of all facets of a computer system, including hardware, software, operating systems, compilers, languages, algorithms, and microcode, Papworth encouraged the Intel team developing the new processor to embrace an integrated approach. The P6 team successfully navigated the thousands of design tradeoffs required of a modern processor in a timely way while striking competitive balances among cost, performance, power, and schedule. Papworth was also the ultimate judge of how and when to use P6’s new microcode-patch facility to deal with any design errata that might turn up. That P6 was a runaway success for Intel is clear in that Intel’s cores today, 30+ years later, still use the same paradigm along with many of the architectural improvements shepherded by Papworth in 1992.</p> <p>Just prior to joining Intel in 1990, Papworth was a lead designer and system architect at a startup called Multiflow. Multiflow co-founder Josh Fisher had invented the Very Long Instruction Word (VLIW) style of system design. Papworth re-engineered Fisher’s design to be implementable in 1985 hardware while carefully maintaining those aspects of Fisher’s VLIW scheme that were essential to performance. VLIWs are also now well-established in graphic processing units (GPUs), AI accelerators, and digital signal processors (DSPs)—a tribute to Josh Fisher’s original vision and to Dave Papworth’s ability to juggle extreme complexity and come up with economically viable, industry-influencing solutions.</p> <p>The ACM Charles P. “Chuck” Thacker Breakthrough in Computing Award recognizes individuals or groups who have made surprising, disruptive, or leapfrog contributions to computing ideas or technologies. Recipients of the award are expected to give the ACM Breakthrough Lecture at a major ACM conference. The award is accompanied by a $100,000 cash prize, with financial support provided by Microsoft.</p> </div></div> </div> <div class="awards-winners__related-content"> <h3> Background</h3> <div class="awards-winners__related-content-body"> <p>David B. Papworth was employed at Intel Corporation from 1990 to 2020, having served in positions including Principal Processor Architect, and Intel Fellow. He has broad experience in CPU microarchitecture, the software/hardware interface, and is listed as co-inventor on more than 50 issued patents for his work.</p> <p>Papworth received a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His honors include receiving the Intel Achievement Award for Microarchitecture, and the Intel Achievement Award for producing a microprocessor chip in record time.</p></div> </div> <div class="awards-winners__related-content"> <h3> 2020 ACM Charles P. "Chuck" Thacker Breakthrough in Computing Award</h3> <div class="awards-winners__related-content-body"> <div class="video-wrapper" style="display: block;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" data-cookieconsent="ignore" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/pKYiT05LgtU" width="560"></iframe></div> <div style="padding-top: 38px;"> <p>ACM named <strong><a href="/award_winners/franz_3053576" target="_blank">Michael Franz</a></strong> of the University of California, Irvine the recipient of the 2020 ACM Charles P. “Chuck” Thacker Breakthrough in Computing Award. Franz is recognized for the development of just-in-time compilation techniques that enable fast and feature-rich web services on the internet. Every day, millions of people around the world use online applications such as Gmail and Facebook. These web applications would not have been possible without the groundbreaking compilation technique Franz developed in the mid 1990s.</p> <p>Beginning with the PhD thesis he completed in 1994, Franz has been exploring the use of just-in-time (JIT) dynamic compilation and optimization, focusing not only on static languages such as Java, but also on dynamically-typed languages. Initially such dynamic languages were primarily used in research and academic settings, but that changed when JavaScript was adopted for creating web services. JavaScript enabled the creation of websites that had application-like behavior, rather than the more static websites enabled by HTML. JavaScript, like other dynamic languages, was initially interpreted, and that led to poor performance. By inventing a new compilation technique, developing a JIT compiler for JavaScript based on this new technique, and then collaborating with Mozilla to incorporate it into the Firefox browser, Franz enabled massive growth in the use of JavaScript, now one of the world’s most heavily used programming languages.</p> <p>“We all use web-based applications every day and they are now so prevalent that we often forget how revolutionary they were when they were first introduced,” said ACM President Gabriele Kotsis. “Whether we’re connecting with friends or colleagues on a social media platform, preparing our taxes using online software, or booking an accommodation at a hotel, we are using a web-based application. Michael Franz’s work certainly fits the Thacker Award’s criteria for ‘leapfrog contributions to computing ideas and technologies.’ Franz displayed foresight in working with Mozilla to implement his ideas on their browser and in making his technology open source so that it could be continually refined and adapted by developers worldwide.”</p> <p>The idea of JIT dynamic compilation goes back decades and was initially used for a variety of statically-typed-languages. In the 1970s, researchers at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center used JIT compilation for Smalltalk, a dynamically-typed language. In the 1980s, researchers at Stanford and Sun explored the use of JITs for Self, a dynamically typed, prototype-based language similar to JavaScript. Franz made several important contributions beyond this earlier work that greatly increased the practicality of JIT compilation.</p> <p>First, rather than optimizing entire functions, he introduced a technique that optimizes only the loops of a program, using a structure called a “trace tree” to represent alternative paths through a loop that are discovered and subsequently translated incrementally. Second, Franz developed a JIT compiler that could be applied in a variety of settings, including those with more limited CPU or memory resources. With these techniques, Franz’s JIT compiler could often achieve performance improvements of 5-10x on JavaScript, which was critical to its wide-ranging adoption and the transformation of web applications. Most websites today use JavaScript, and all browsers include a JavaScript execution engine. Franz’s technology helped make this transformation possible.</p> <p>“Microsoft is proud to fund the Breakthrough in Computing Award, named after Chuck Thacker, one of the computing field’s true visionaries,” said Eric Horvitz, Microsoft’s Chief Scientific Officer. “Chuck had a magical ability to transform over-the-horizon computing dreams into world-changing realities. Michael Franz’s work on just-in-time compilation is a great choice for the Breakthrough in Computing honor. His work has been transformative, enabling today’s rich web experiences by allowing websites to execute sophisticated, interactive programs nearly instantaneously. Michael Franz’s insights, and his successful application of those insights, have had tremendous real-world impact.”</p> <p><strong><u>Biographical Background</u></strong></p> <p>Michael Franz is a Chancellor's Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of California (UC), Irvine where he also directs the Secure Systems and Software Laboratory. His current research emphasis is in software systems, particularly focusing on compiler, virtual machine, and related system-level techniques for making software safer, or faster, or both.</p> <p>Franz received a Doctor of Technical Sciences degree in Computer Science and a Diplomingenieur, Informatik-Ing. ETH degree, both from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich). His honors include receiving a Humboldt Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, an IEEE Computer Society Technical Achievement Award, and a Distinguished Mid-Career Faculty Award for Research from the University of California, Irvine. Franz is a Fellow of ACM, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP).</p> </div></div> </div> <div class="awards-winners__related-content"> <h3> Background</h3> <div class="awards-winners__related-content-body"> <p>Michael Franz is a Chancellor's Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of California (UC), Irvine where he also directs the Secure Systems and Software Laboratory. His current research emphasis is in software systems, particularly focusing on compiler, virtual machine, and related system-level techniques for making software safer, or faster, or both.</p> <p>Franz received a Doctor of Technical Sciences degree in Computer Science and a Diplomingenieur, Informatik-Ing. ETH degree, both from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich). His honors include receiving a Humboldt Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, an IEEE Computer Society Technical Achievement Award, and a Distinguished Mid-Career Faculty Award for Research from the University of California, Irvine. Franz is a Fellow of ACM, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP).</p></div> </div> <div class="awards-winners__related-content"> <h3> 2018 ACM Charles P. "Chuck" Thacker Breakthrough in Computing Award</h3> <div class="awards-winners__related-content-body"> <div class="video-wrapper" style="display: block;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Ll4TPbiLAgA" data-cookieconsent="ignore" width="560"></iframe></div> <div style="padding-top: 38px;"> <p>ACM named <strong><a href="/award_winners/rosenblum_4094918" target="_blank">Mendel Rosenblum</a></strong> of Stanford University the recipient of the inaugural ACM Charles P. “Chuck” Thacker Breakthrough in Computing Award. Rosenblum is recognized for reinventing the virtual machine for the modern era and thereby revolutionizing datacenters and enabling modern cloud computing. In the late 1990s, Rosenblum and his students at Stanford University brought virtual machines back to life by using them to solve challenging technical problems in building system software for scalable multiprocessors. In 1998, Rosenblum and colleagues founded VMware. VMware popularized the use of virtual machines as a means of supporting many disparate software environments to share processor resources within a datacenter. This approach ultimately led to the development of modern cloud computing services such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud.</p> <p>The ACM Charles P. “Chuck” Thacker Breakthrough in Computing Award recognizes individuals or groups who have made surprising, disruptive, or leapfrog contributions to computing ideas or technologies. Recipients of the award are expected to give the ACM Breakthrough Lecture at a major ACM conference. The award is accompanied by a $100,000 cash prize, with financial support provided by Microsoft.</p> <p>“The new paradigm of cloud computing, in which computing services are delivered over the internet, has been one of the most important developments in the computing industry over the past 20 years,” said ACM President Cherri M. Pancake. “Cloud computing has vastly improved the efficiency of systems, reduced costs, and been essential to the operations of businesses at all levels. However, cloud computing, as we know it today, would not be possible without Rosenblum’s reinvention of virtual machines. His leadership, both through his early research at Stanford and his founding of VMware, has been indispensable to the rise of datacenters and the preeminence of the cloud.”</p> <p>As the name suggests, virtual machines are systems comprised of software, hardware, or a combination of the two, that enable one computer to behave like another. IBM and others developed the idea of virtualization in the 1960s to enable timesharing. However, as new methods of timesharing were developed and the price of hardware dropped, virtual machines fell out of favor. By the late 1980s, virtualization was considered an irrelevant and obsolete idea.</p> <p>In the late 1990s, Rosenblum and his students at Stanford University revisited the idea of virtual machines to develop system software for FLASH, an experimental large-scale multiprocessor. They recognized that existing operating systems could not support large numbers of processors, and modifying one to work efficiently on FLASH would have been very difficult. Instead, they decided to use virtual machines to run multiple operating system instances on FLASH, each with only a few virtual processors.</p> <p>The success of his work on FLASH prompted Rosenblum to found the company VMware in 1998 with Diane Greene, Edouard Bugnion, Scott Devine, and Ellen Wang. VMware popularized the use of virtual machines as a means of allowing any disparate software environments to share processor resources within a datacenter. Today, every commercial cloud environment, including major providers such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud, is based on virtualization concepts developed by Rosenblum and his colleagues.</p> <p>“We’re excited to see the contributions of Mendel Rosenblum recognized with the inaugural ACM Charles P. Thacker Breakthrough Award,” said Eric Horvitz, Technical Fellow and Director of Microsoft Research. “The award was envisioned to honor the intellect and vision of Chuck Thacker, who was known for upending conventional thinking and introducing breakthrough innovations that changed the trajectory of computing. Mendel Rosenblum is a fabulous choice to receive the inaugural Thacker Award. Rosenblum sought to address a daunting new challenge by reimagining virtualization, an approach that many had bypassed. Virtual machines are essential to the way cloud computing functions, and it is hard to overstate the importance of cloud computing for the computing field as well as for industry more generally.”</p> <p><strong><u>Biographical Background</u></strong></p> <p>Mendel Rosenblum is the DRC Professor in the School of Engineering and Professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. In 1998, he co-founded VMware, a private company that developed many of the core technologies that underpin cloud computing today. As a subsidiary of Dell Technologies, VMware remains a leader in cloud computing and platform virtualization software and services, employing more than 21,000 people.</p> <p>A graduate of the University of Virginia, Rosenblum earned his Master’s and doctoral degrees in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley. Rosenblum is a Fellow of ACM, and his numerous honors include receiving the ACM Software System Award for VMware Workstation 1.0; the ACM/SIGOPS Mark Weiser Award for innovation in operating system research; the IEEE Reynolds B. Johnson Information Storage Award (with John Ousterhout); and the ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award for his dissertation “The Design and Implementation of a Log-Structured File System.” Rosenblum is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.</p> <p><em>Rosenblum will formally receive the award at ACM’s annual Awards Banquet on June 15, 2019 in San Francisco</em>.</p> </div></div> </div> <div class="awards-winners__related-content"> <h3> Background</h3> <div class="awards-winners__related-content-body"> <p>Mendel Rosenblum is the DRC Professor in the School of Engineering and Professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. In 1998, he co-founded VMware, a private company that developed many of the core technologies that underpin cloud computing today. As a subsidiary of Dell Technologies, VMware remains a leader in cloud computing and platform virtualization software and services, employing more than 21,000 people.</p> <p>A graduate of the University of Virginia, Rosenblum earned his Master’s and doctoral degrees in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley. Rosenblum is a Fellow of ACM, and his numerous honors include receiving the ACM Software System Award for VMware Workstation 1.0; the ACM/SIGOPS Mark Weiser Award for innovation in operating system research; the IEEE Reynolds B. Johnson Information Storage Award (with John Ousterhout); and the ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award for his dissertation “The Design and Implementation of a Log-Structured File System.” Rosenblum is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.</p></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="columns large-4 medium-4 small-12 zone-3"> <div> <div> <div class="articles single-cta"> <div class="two-col-alt article-block"> <div class="row" data-equalizer=""> <div class="large-12 medium-12 small-12 columns"> <div class="cta shadowed " data-equalizer-watch=""> <div class="row" style="margin: inherit;"> <div class="medium-12 columns d-table top-cta"> <div class="text-wrap"> <span class="article-category">Awards & Recognition</span> <h2 class="text-left"><a href='https://awards.acm.org/about/2022-thacker' target='_blank'>ACM Breakthrough in Computing Award Goes to David Papworth</a></h2> <div class="dek"> <p>ACM has named <strong><a href="/award-recipients/papworth_0762479">David B. Papworth</a></strong>, formerly of Intel (retired), as the recipient of the <a href="/thacker"><strong>ACM Charles P. “Chuck” Thacker Breakthrough in Computing Award</strong></a>. Papworth is recognized for fundamental groundbreaking contributions to Intel’s P6 out-of-order engine and Very Long Instruction Word (VLIW) processors. Papworth was a lead designer of the Intel P6 (sold commercially as the Pentium Pro) microprocessor, which was a major advancement over the existing state-of-the-art, not just for Intel but for the broader computer design community.</p></div> </div> <a href='https://awards.acm.org/about/2022-thacker' target='_blank'><img src="/binaries/ctaimagelarge/content/gallery/acm/ctas/people/david-papworth.jpg" alt="2022 ACM Thacker Breakthrough in Computing Award recipient David Papworth" /></a></div> </div> </div></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div> <div class="panel awards-navigation"> <h2 class="sidebar-header">Awards by Category</h2> <div class="data-list"> <dl class="awards-navigation__accordion accordion" data-accordion> <dd class="accordion-navigation"> <a href="#awards_99_0" class="awards-navigation__link"> <h3>Career-Long Contributions</h3> </a> <div id="awards_99_0" class="awards-navigation__content content"> <a class="awards-navigation__link" href="/turing">ACM A.M. Turing Award</a> <hr> <a class="awards-navigation__link" href="/distinguished-service">ACM Distinguished Service Award</a> <hr> <a class="awards-navigation__link" href="/fellows">ACM Fellows</a> </div> </dd> <dd class="accordion-navigation"> <a href="#awards_99_1" class="awards-navigation__link"> <h3>Early-to-Mid-Career Contributions</h3> </a> <div id="awards_99_1" class="awards-navigation__content content"> <a class="awards-navigation__link" href="/hopper">ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award</a> <hr> <a class="awards-navigation__link" href="/acm-prize">ACM Prize in Computing</a> <hr> <a class="awards-navigation__link" href="/distinguished-members">ACM Distinguished Member</a> <hr> <a class="awards-navigation__link" href="/senior-members">ACM Senior Member</a> </div> </dd> <dd class="accordion-navigation"> <a href="#awards_99_2" class="awards-navigation__link"> <h3>Specific Types of Contributions</h3> </a> <div id="awards_99_2" class="awards-navigation__content content"> <a class="awards-navigation__link" href="/thacker">ACM Charles P. "Chuck" Thacker Breakthrough in Computing Award</a> <hr> <a class="awards-navigation__link" href="/lawler">ACM Eugene L. Lawler Award for Humanitarian Contributions within Computer Science and Informatics</a> <hr> <a class="awards-navigation__link" href="/allen">ACM Frances E. Allen Award for Outstanding Mentoring</a> <hr> <a class="awards-navigation__link" href="/bell">ACM Gordon Bell Prize</a> <hr> <a class="awards-navigation__link" href="/bell-climate">ACM Gordon Bell Prize for Climate Modeling</a> <hr> <a class="awards-navigation__link" href="/barroso">ACM Luiz André Barroso Award</a> <hr> <a class="awards-navigation__link" href="/karlstrom">ACM Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award</a> <hr> <a class="awards-navigation__link" href="/kanellakis">ACM Paris Kanellakis Theory and Practice Award</a> <hr> <a class="awards-navigation__link" href="/policy">ACM Policy Award</a> <hr> <a class="awards-navigation__link" href="/president">ACM Presidential Award</a> <hr> <a class="awards-navigation__link" href="/software-system">ACM Software System Award</a> <hr> <a class="awards-navigation__link" href="/athena">ACM Athena Lecturer Award</a> <hr> <a class="awards-navigation__link" href="/newell">ACM AAAI Allen Newell Award</a> <hr> <a class="awards-navigation__link" href="/eckert-mauchly">ACM-IEEE CS Eckert-Mauchly Award</a> <hr> <a class="awards-navigation__link" href="/kennedy">ACM-IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award</a> <hr> <a class="awards-navigation__link" href="/outstanding-contribution">Outstanding Contribution to ACM Award</a> <hr> <a class="awards-navigation__link" href="/computational-science">SIAM/ACM Prize in Computational Science and Engineering</a> <hr> <a class="awards-navigation__link" href="/programming-systems-and-languages-paper">ACM Programming Systems and Languages Paper Award</a> </div> </dd> <dd class="accordion-navigation"> <a href="#awards_99_3" class="awards-navigation__link"> <h3>Student Contributions</h3> </a> <div id="awards_99_3" class="awards-navigation__content content"> <a class="awards-navigation__link" href="/doctoral-dissertation">ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award</a> <hr> <a class="awards-navigation__link" href="/hpc-fellows">ACM-IEEE CS George Michael Memorial HPC Fellowships</a> <hr> <a class="awards-navigation__link" href="/cutler-bell">ACM/CSTA Cutler-Bell Prize in High School Computing</a> <hr> <a class="awards-navigation__link" href="/international-science-and-engineering-fair">International Science and Engineering Fair</a> </div> </dd> <dd class="accordion-navigation"> <a href="#awards_99_4" class="awards-navigation__link"> <h3>Regional Awards</h3> </a> <div id="awards_99_4" class="awards-navigation__content content"> <a class="awards-navigation__link" href="/india-doctoral-dissertation">ACM India Doctoral Dissertation Award</a> <hr> <a class="awards-navigation__link" href="/acm-india-ecr">ACM India Early Career Researcher Award</a> <hr> <a class="awards-navigation__link" href="/acm-india-occw">ACM India Outstanding Contributions in Computing by a Woman Award</a> <hr> <a class="awards-navigation__link" href="/acm-india-occe">ACM India Outstanding Contribution to Computing Education Award</a> <hr> <a class="awards-navigation__link" href="/ipsj-acm-global">IPSJ/ACM Award for Early Career Contributions to Global Research</a> <hr> <a class="awards-navigation__link" href="/ccf-acm-ai">CCF-ACM Award for Artificial Intelligence</a> </div> </dd> <dd class="accordion-navigation"> <a href="/sig-awards" class="awards-navigation__link--title awards-navigation__link state-disabled"> <h3>SIG Awards</h3> </a> <div id="awards_99_5" class="awards-navigation__content 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ACM Charles P. “Chuck” Thacker Breakthrough in Computing Award