Bob Sproull

The People at Sun Labs

 Bob Sproull

Dr. Bob Sproull
Sun Fellow, Director Sun Microsystems Laboratories
Sun Microsystems Laboratories


1 Network Drive, Building #2
ubur02-313
Burlington, MA 01803


Robert F. Sproull, Vice President and Fellow at Sun Microsystems, founded and led the Massachusetts branch of Sun Microsystems Laboratories for over ten years. He is serving as Interim Director of Sun Microsystems Laboratories.

Since undergraduate days, he has been building hardware and software for computer graphics: clipping hardware, an early device-independent graphics package, page description languages, laser printing software, and window systems. He has also been involved in VLSI design, especially of asynchronous circuits and systems. Before joining Sun in 1990, he was a principal with Sutherland, Sproull & Associates, an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University and a member of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. He is a coauthor with William Newman of the early text, "Principles of Interactive Computer Graphics." He is an author of the recently-published book "Logical Effort," which deals with designing fast CMOS circuits. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has served on the US Air Force Scientific Advisory Board.

Education:

* PhD Computer Science 1977, Stanford University * MS Computer Science 1970, Stanford University * BA Physics 1968, Harvard College

Technical Reports

  • Project Neuromancer
    By: Jim Waldo, Tim Blackman, Jane Loizeaux, Robert F. Sproull, Michael Warres and Ann Wollrath
    Report Number: TR-2007-162
    May 24, 2007
  • Counterflow Pipeline Processor Architecture
    By: Ivan E. Sutherland, Charles E. Molnar and Robert F. Sproull
    Report Number: TR-94-25
    Apr 1, 1994

    Latest Sun Patents

  • Method and modules for control of pipelines carrying data using pipelines carrying control signals
    (Mar 19, 2002)
  • Method and apparatus for enforcing ordered execution of reads and writes across a memory interface
    (Mar 14, 2000)
  • Control circuit of mutual exclusion elements
    (Aug 24, 1999)
  • Recursive multi-channel interface
    (May 5, 1998)
  • Scoreboard table for a counterflow pipeline processor with instruction packages and result packages
    (Oct 28, 1997)
    See all 7 patents »

    Awards

    News

  • Pulling Back The Curtain At Sun Labs
    Information Week

  • Sun Labs Opens Its Doors
    Dr. Dobbs

  • Sun displays developing technologies in new labs
    Computerworld UK


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