Computer Architecture Prodigy: Young Computer Scientist Awarded Esteemed Engineering Honor Dr. Akash Sridhar has been awarded the title of "Fellow" by the prestigious Institution of Engineering and Technology
By Deep Baliyan
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Dr. Akash Sridhar, a computer architect from California has created history by becoming one of the youngest engineers ever to be awarded the title of "Fellow" by the prestigious Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET). Members of the IET who have created a global impact with extraordinary achievement(s) sustained at high levels in engineering, technology, or related disciplines are awarded this recognition.
IET is one of the largest professional engineering organizations in the world. The IET act as a voice for the engineering profession and advises governments on engineering decisions. IET has more than 169,000 members spread across 150 countries. Dr. Sridhar joins the league of IET Fellows which includes several Nobel laureates like Sir J.J. Thomson and computer scientists like Sir Tim Berners-Lee (inventor of the World Wide Web).
Dr. Sridhar has become a Fellow of this elite organization at the age of 30. He is one of the youngest ever people in the world to be elected as a Fellow of the IET, and also the youngest ever Indian. This is an exceptional achievement as the average age of a newly elected IET Fellow is normally above 45.
Dr. Sridhar's background and contributions
Dr. Sridhar graduated with a Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Computer architecture is his primary research area. His research has helped improve and achieve high branch prediction accuracy for CPUs which has been a groundbreaking feat among his other research contributions. The research addresses a critical problem in the computer architecture domain. In most CPUs, branches that current predictors fail to capture are branches that depend on a recent load instruction. If the data loaded is challenging to predict, these predictors have a low prediction accuracy as these patterns are arbitrary and too large to be captured. Dr. Sridhar's novel branch predictor titled "Load Driven Branch Predictor" overcomes this challenge and allows the CPU to achieve high branch prediction accuracy which results in a tremendous boost in performance.
Moreover, Dr. Sridhar also contributed to the development of Pyrope, an open-source hardware description language. Several of his works have been published in top research venues and have been cited by top experts from all over the world. His works inspired several researchers from Ivy League universities and US-based national research labs.
He also actively contributes to the education domain to help future engineers benefit from his experience. The open-source tools developed by Dr. Sridhar are used by top US universities as a part of their curriculum. Dr. Sridhar serves as a Board of Studies member at SRM Easwari Engineering College (affiliated with Anna University, Chennai) and helps review and refine the curriculum and regulations of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. This helps ensure the curriculum and regulations meet the changing requirements of the current computer engineering industry and research.
Dr. Sridhar also contributes back to the computer architecture research community through his contributions as a program committee member and peer-reviewer at top conferences. These high-impact conferences pick experts who are at the pinnacle of the field.
Dr. Sridhar's role at Qualcomm
Currently, Dr. Sridhar works as a Senior CPU Architect at Qualcomm, California. He works in a critical capacity with the team that architects Qualcomm's processors that powers millions of Android-based mobile phones throughout the world. His expertise is helping improve the performance capabilities of Qualcomm's high-performance CPUs.
Dr. Sridhar is already a top expert in the field of computer architecture and the broader impact of his research across the globe is a testament to it. His election as a Fellow of the IET further strengthens his place at the pinnacle of this field.
